Blind Winter
by sdbubbles
Summary: A combination of a world unseen, a tragic loss and an inherited reliance - is that what it takes to make Serena Campbell come flying off the rails? Serena/Edward.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is quite a random thing I've written, but it focuses on how easy it is to let yourself remain blind to the obvious, and how hard it is to accept the truth when it's placed in front of you. It focused on Serena and on Edward, taking it from both sides. I hope it makes sense - it _is_ 1am!**

**Sarah x**

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"Yeah, I'm just about to head home," Edward smiled at Ric when he asked him if his shift was over. "A much needed curry is awaiting me. Well, once I make it," he added, dreading the thought of having to make his dinner when he got home. Night was falling quickly and freezing over with little warning, making time seem uneven and cold as December approached.

He strode down the corridor without thinking, but his eye was caught by Serena's office door, a few inches open. Just enough for him to spy on her. For just a moment, he saw not Serena, but her father as she drank from a full wine glass.

Edward watched Serena from the ajar door of her office. He didn't like that she drank the copious amounts of alcohol she did; to be drinking in her office every night, unsociably and alone, was not a healthy habit to develop. To see her sitting at half-past five, one her second glass of wine, sifting through paperwork and seemingly forgetting she even had a life worried him. It was not his right to worry about her, and he knew that, but worry he did.

He walked away, resisting the urge to take it from her. It was not his place. He was kicking himself for giving her wine. She didn't need the encouragement.

However, as he collected his coat, he found his conscience would not allow it. He knew the risk. Serena surely must have worked out the risk she was taking at some point in the past seventeen years. She couldn't have been blind to it.

He knocked on the door lightly. "Come in!" she called. She glanced around. "Ah, Edward. And what do you have to infuriate me with tonight?"

He picked up the wine bottle to find a third already gone. "I really wish you wouldn't drink so much," he sighed. He felt her glare before she even shot it, accustomed by now to her reactions, especially when people were concerned for her health, safety and wellbeing.

She stared him down, but he did not falter. He sat down opposite her. "What does it matter to you?" she demanded. "I'm not your problem anymore."  
"Your the mother of my child," he reminded her fairly. "You'll always be my concern, whether you like it or not. And right now, I am _warning_ you, Serena, you're walking the line with the booze."

"You drink just as much as I do!" she protested.

"Maybe," he allowed. He leaned forward and put his arms crossed on the desk. "But I very rarely start drinking at five in the afternoon on a weekday." He watched as she cottoned on, looking at the half-filled wine glass with accusing doubt. "And it's already in the family," he added, recalling her dad's 'love' of alcohol.

Her head snapped around. "In the family? Nobody in my family has an alcohol problem," she said, and he realised quite quickly that she had been oblivious. Oh, no. Now he had to act like she knew, to try and expiate himself of whatever crime Serena took this to be against her, because she was sure to interpret this as a personal attack on her.

"Yeah. Killed your dad, remember?" he gently said to her, but he doubted now that she had ever known.

She gave a bitter laugh. "Don't be ridiculous! He died because he took the Ralia corner too fast on the A9."

Edward remembered that night well; he had rushed Adrienne up to Inverness to see him, trying every quarter of an hour to get hold of Serena, who had remained in England while her parents, husband and infant daughter had taken a holiday in the Highlands. "And do you really think Andrew would have been so reckless if he hadn't been drinking?" he challenged her assumption. "He would have known better than to go past Dalwhinnie at night in the winter if he had been sober."

"Dad didn't drink and drive," she growled at him, and he saw instantly that he had hurt and upset her; why was it that, no matter how he said something, it managed to get his back up? Her dark brown eyes were shining, and she was making them unreadable. "He wouldn't have done that. He knew better. That road is bad in the winter. He slipped on black ice."

"Serena..." he warned her gently.

"_No_," she snapped. "Do not try and tell me my dad was stupid enough to drink drive on the A9, of all places."

Edward rubbed his hands across his face, trying to work out a way to minimise the damage he had just caused. He had always assumed that Serena had observed her father closely, taken note and kept quiet, but it seemed she genuinely had no clue of what had been obvious to both him and Adrienne. The elephant in the room, it appeared, was something Serena had been completely blind to. And, to be fair, it was difficult to see it in someone if their presence never lingered long enough to make any patterns, to join any dots. Though emotionally and spiritually joined at the hip, Serena and Andrew, towards the end of the man's life, had seen each other twice a year at most.

He met her gaze cautiously and was unable to shake the feeling of dread that came with kicking the hornets' nest. "Your dad was always drink driving," Edward informed her. "Well, actually, he was always drinking, never mind the driving."

"You're lying." Her accusation was one he had expected. "Get out."

"Serena-"

"_Out_!"

He held his hands up in defeat; he knew she would have had a difficult time believing him. She was not one to swallow what she was told without question, and he had lied to before so she was understandably wary of anything he told her. He understood that. And yet he just wanted to shake her until she accepted what he knew was the truth.

He wasn't sure if she was in denial or just had never seen it, but she definitely wasn't accepting that he father had had an alcohol problem. Even if Edward hadn't seen it for himself, Adrienne had once confided in him the havoc, unknown to Serena, Andrew had caused as a younger man. Adrienne had hidden it well, but now Edward wondered if protecting Serena from seeing these things had actually been the right thing to do. Now, as a grown woman, she could not see what was right in front of her all this time.

Left with no option under her harsh stare, he took the bottle – though he knew she would quickly acquire another – and simply walked away from her. There was no convincing her. One things she had always had in common with her father was that once she got something in her head it was the truth, and it didn't matter who tried to disprove it.

He pulled out his mobile and searched the phone book online for Adrienne's home number; he felt it only fair that Serena may well call her up after one too many drinks to give her a grilling for information. He dialled the number quickly as he headed for his car, kicking himself yet again. "Hello?" Adrienne answered.

"Hey, Adrienne. It's Edward," he said, pinging the lock for his car from halfway across the car park. "Listen, I think we may have a problem," he confessed solemnly.

"And what might that be?" Adrienne asked. He heard the smile in her voice as she added, "Has Rena knocked your teeth down your throat yet?"

"No. Still waiting for that," he grinned. "But in all seriousness, I don't suppose that you've explicitly explained Andrew's habits to Serena in the last fifteen years, have you?"

"No," she replied, her tone laced with confusion. "She was content with the way she remembered him so I let it stay that way. Why?" she demanded. He tried to find the words to explain what had happened, but it was more difficult than he had been expecting. "Oh, Edward. Have you put your foot in your mouth again?"

"Little bit," he allowed. He added internally that it might well have been the understatement of the century. "I don't know."

"Start from the top."

"Well, I saw her with a bottle of wine in her office and it reminded me of Andrew, just for a split second," he explained. "I went in and told her to watch it with the alcohol, and I said it was what killed Andrew, and I thought she would have known by now and she didn't and...oh, Christ, Adrienne! What have I done?!"

He heard her heave a tired and yet resigned sigh from the other end of the phone line. "Calm down, Edward," she ordered him firmly. "This was bound to happen, one way or another. Either she was going to make the connection herself or someone would have stuck their foot in it."

Edward groaned and leaned forward, his head against the steering wheel, trying to work out the right thing to do. It felt wrong to leave Serena to doubt everything she knew, but he didn't want to make it any worse than he had already succeeded in doing. "What am I meant to do?"

"Keep an eye on her," Adrienne suggested. "You're probably doing that already. But when she does see the truth, she's going to need someone to help her understand everything she couldn't see," she explained. "That means you're going to have to man up."

"I still can't understand how she could have been blind to it all," Edward said. "Andrew was a blatant alcoholic!"

Adrienne remained silent for a moment before she eventually spoke in an effort to provide the reasonable explanation for Serena's lack of vision when it came to her father. "When she was younger, he hid it well and so did I. After she left home we only saw her at Christmas and New Year and birthdays and such. Occasions where a drink or three is expected. And I don't think she really wanted to see it."

"She still doesn't."

"I know."

"Be warned, Adrienne," he said solemnly. "She's in the mood to get drunk and interrogate you. I can see it in her eyes."

"You always could read her eyes," she said to him. "Don't worry. I've got my wits about me. Just make sure you do too."

"You think I would have survived on her ward if I didn't?" he reminded Adrienne jokingly, trying to look for a distraction from the dread settling in his stomach. "I'll call you if she starts kicking off, OK?"

"Alright. Thank you for the warning, Edward," she said, grateful sincerity obvious and undisguised. If there was one thing about Adrienne he admired, it was the polite grace she managed to treat him with, even though he knew she took a dim view on the more idiotic things he had done to Serena.

"No problem. Bye."

"Bye."

Chucking his phone carelessly onto the passenger seat, Edward considered what would happen when the realisation hit Serena. He could see her well and truly kicking off, but he knew that while he was in her presence, she would direct the anger at him. But he had loved her and lived with her and knew all too well that she could torture herself when she was left alone. Neither idea was very appealing, but the only other one was for her to open up and let him in, which was not going to happen.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed! I'm just glad it even makes sense!**

**Sarah x**

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Serena set her wine glass down, inwardly scoffing at Edward's interference. She did not have a problem with alcohol, nor had her father. He was just stirring the pot to see how she would react. He had done it often enough before. She wasn't going to fall for it this time.

She glanced up at the clock. It was eight o'clock already. And she'd drank a bottle of wine. And she couldn't drive home. "Oh, for God's sake," she sighed. She picked up her mobile and went to phone for a taxi, but reconsidered. For some reason, despite his lies and his rotten attitude, she wanted Edward. She wanted the safety of someone she knew, even if she didn't much like them. What she knew, she could predict; what she could predict, she could dance around.

She let her thumb fall onto the call symbol and waited for him to pick up. "Serena?" he answered, and she heard the uncertainty in his tone.

"Edward, could you..." she faltered, wondering why she was proving him right. "Could you drive me home?" He didn't answer. "Please?"

"You're drunk," he accused, his heavy sigh warning her of his frustrations. "I know you hate my guts but sometimes I do know what's best for you!" he shouted over the phone at her. To hear Edward shout shook her – he rarely raised his voice, even to her in the most heated of situations. She could bawl her head off at him and he would refuse to raise his voice; it was one of his most infuriating traits.

She hesitated. "I..."

"You never _listen_!" he bellowed at her. Why was he reacting like this? Her hazed mind couldn't compute why he was shouting at her.

"Edward-"

"No!" he shouted; it made her flinch just to hear it. "Listen to me. Like it or not, I'm right. Getting drunk doesn't prove anything other than your maddening obstinacy!"

"Why are you shouting at me?!" she demanded.

"Because you drive me to distraction!" he admitted. It was not the first time someone had accused her of that; her mother had said it too.

She kicked the desk, unable to keep her emotions in check. "Just shut up!" she told him. "I'm sorry if I don't live up to your expectations of my strength," she snapped, the sarcasm sounding broken as it fell unprocessed from her brain and out of mouth. She hung up on him before she said anything she was bound to regret; he had a talent for making her speak before she thought.

She sat back down and poured the last of the wine into the glass, knocking it back without a thought that didn't concern calming herself down. The one time she had asked for help, for her ex-husband to come and help her out, and he blew up in her ear. This was exactly why she kept everyone out. As a general rule she viewed people as volatile and untrustworthy, a theory Edward had just made watertight.

She put her head down and groaned, feeling like she could sleep for a million years. How did it come to this?

A hand on her back and a whisper of her name woke her up, but she wasn't sure how long she had been asleep for. "Edward?" she mumbled, recognising easily the voice she had known for twenty years. "Why are you here?"

"You don't think I would have let you find your own way home, did you?" he asked her gently. "Come on. Grab your stuff." She silently obeyed, picking up her bag, phone and coat, leaving her laptop for fear of emailing Henrik Hanssen a burden of cheek in her slightly inebriated state. She struggled to get her coat on, and felt Edward's warm hands guide her arms into the right places and button it up for her. She glanced up at him and saw the concern unhidden yet unexpressed in his clear blue eyes. It hit her suddenly that he still cared. "Why do you do this to yourself?" he sighed hopelessly.

She shrugged her shoulders without the energy to instigate another argument with him. "I..." she trailed away. She didn't have the words to continue after that.

He pinched her nose with a smile tainted by something she couldn't quite discern from the worry on his face from the moment he had clapped eyes on her. The gesture of goodwill and the attempt at friendship brought a lump to her throat. He was trying, and for once it wasn't just her patience he was trying. His hand on her back guided her through an almost deserted Keller to the lift.

She sneaked a look up at him; he was subdued, not his usual arrogant, irritating, charming self.

By the time they got to his car, she had to ask him, "Why did you come and get me?"

He turned the engine on. "Like I said, I wouldn't leave you here knowing you were too drunk to drive home." It didn't compute, but why should it? It wasn't like she even knew why she had asked him in the first place. She just wanted to be around what she knew and, perhaps unfortunately, he was what she knew.

"Sorry for calling you. I'm not your problem."

"Again, like I said, you'll always be my problem," Edward smiled to himself, and she briefly allowed herself to wonder what lay behind the things he so often said. "I'm sorry for shouting at you."

"You scared me," she confessed her reaction to his outburst. "You never, ever shout."

"I know," he replied. "You just...oh, I don't know."

She looked around to find he was clearly biting his tongue. She could see there were many things going on in that mind of his, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know what it was he was thinking. Silence fell over them like a wave; it was drowning her.

He soon pulled up at her door. "Coffee?" she offered, feeling she owed him at least that for dragging him out at night just because she had got a bit drunk. "Least I can do." He smiled and got out of the car, coming up behind her as she struggled to get the key in the lock. His hand guided hers until the door was open. "Thanks," she muttered, embarrassed by the state her concentration was in.

She went straight to the kitchen, flicking the kettle on and grabbing a bag of crisps to try and sober herself up a little bit. What she was most annoyed about was that she had got drunk when Edward had warned her that he thought she drank too much.

When she returned, she found him with a familiar box beside him on the sofa. The wooden box was filled with a lifetime of memories, kept behind the sofa but seldom opened unless her or Eleanor's birth certificates were needed for some document or another. She sat next to him and handed him his mug. "Look at this," he ordered her, passing the photograph to her. It was from when she was eight years old, in a pretty dress and in an old hall she vaguely recalled from her childhood holidays. A ceilidh. "Look at your dad." She obeyed his order. "He's drunk."

"It's a ceilidh. Everyone is drunk at a ceilidh," she reasoned matter-of-factly.

He handed her another and she set the first gently aside. "On the beach in Fife. Remember that?" he asked her. She remembered the wind and the smell of salt, Edward's hand in hers, her parents wandering alongside, four months pregnant under the morning sun. "Half-cut, at the very least." Her eyes drifted to her father's face; he did have that glazed look in his eyes, but but could easily have been the sunlight.

Edward pressed another, very old, picture onto her hand. "I was a month old when this was taken," she smiled at the baby in the young man's arms – the baby that became her. She looked closely. There was no mistaking it this time. "He...he's drunk," she stated.

"As a skunk," Edward added. "Your mum wouldn't let him hold you unless he was sitting down in case he dropped you."

She turned her head. "She never told me that," admitted Serena, albeit grudgingly.

He passed her another photograph. "My university graduation," she smiled. Edward's finger pointed out Andrew's face. "He was drinking," she said quietly. "He turned up drunk to my graduation."

Another photo was passed to her, this time of her parents sitting on a bench in a park, a newborn Eleanor in the buggy between them; Serena recalled her father telling her they had got a passing teenager to take the picture for them. Adrienne looked uncomfortable. Andrew was blatantly on the verge of being drunk. "He took his granddaughter out when he was drinking," Serena realised with an inward shudder. What if something had happened while they were out, and he had not been in a fit state to deal with it? What then? What would have happened to the child?

Every picture she was shown, her dad had been drinking...how had she never noticed?

"But he never seemed drunk," she said. "You could never smell it off him. I always thought he was just a bit eccentric and clumsy," she admitted her oversights. She let out a laugh, but it was without any happiness or even humour. It was more born out of shock than anything else. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you knew," he replied. "I thought you knew and just didn't say anything."

She felt it all bubbling away inside. Anger was instantly directed at herself, both her parents, Edward...she couldn't believe this. It wouldn't soak through her mind for her to break down and analyse so she could understand all that went on behind her back. She couldn't accept this, even though it was right there. Photographs told a thousand words of truth, and only a blind person couldn't read them. Had she really been blind for her entire life?

"What about Mum?" asked Serena. "Why didn't _she_ tell me?"

"I can't speak for her. All I know is this: she loves you more than anything else in the world."

Those words did nothing to help. If anything, they just confused her even more. Why would her mother lie to her for her whole life if she loved her? It made no sense. There was no logic here. Her thoughts chased each other, each idea leading to another unanswered question.

"Are you OK?" Edward asked, and she only vaguely heard him. When her mind caught up with her ears, she turned round and studied his face. He was watching her. He was waiting for an answer. But she didn't know the answer.

She turned back around and picked up the oldest picture from when she herself was month old. There was no mistaking it. Andrew was sitting in a chair and it was clear in the way his head fell and his posture and unsteady eyes that he was completely out of it on alcohol. She doubted he had even been aware of who was cradled in his arms.

It wasn't until water hit the paper that she realised was crying silent tears. "No," she confessed. "No, I'm not OK. How can you do this to me and then asked if I'm OK?!" she snapped at him ungraciously. Deep down she knew this was not his fault but she wanted someone to blame and someone to suffer her pain. She felt his arm around her shoulders.

She picked up the pictures and threw them back in the box, locking it and dropping it to the floor out of her sight. She didn't say anything and neither did he. Even after years apart they knew each other. They both knew when the other was lying, crying and dying, even if it was on the inside.

It was a blessing and curse.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This probably is a load of rubbish. Oh well. Thanks, as always, to everyone with the immense patience it must take to read and review.**

**Sarah x**

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Edward watched Serena as she pulled herself together. He hated doing this to her; he could see it eating away at her inside. He did, however, think it was high time someone explained to Serena what had gone one behind her back. He accepted the well-meaning in Adrienne's protection, but it had to end at some point. Serena was in danger of going down the same road as Andrew had, and Edward would do anything in his power to stop that happening.

Serena had always loved wine, and so had he, but while he at least tried to be responsible with it, when she went off the rails, a bottle was the first place she crawled to. In a sick irony she had done it when Andrew died, and Edward had forced himself to remain in control of his tongue.

He only understood how far away her mind actually was when she allowed his fingers to run through her soft dark hair. She was letting him in and blocking him out at the same time. It was a habit she had sustained most of her life, and it never failed to drive Edward up the wall.

She leaned forward and hid her face with her hands. So much for pulling herself together. Edward followed the first instinct to kneel down in front of her and force her hands from her cheeks. "Don't crucify yourself," he said to her. "OK?"

"How could I not notice?!" she asked of him. He didn't have the answer. He didn't know how Serena managed to ignore it. "How could I fail to notice that my dad had a drinking problem? I'm a _doctor_, for God's sake!"

Edward sighed and leaned his forehead against her knee for a moment. He didn't know how to explain it to her. For years he had watched her live her life, climb the career ladder, raise her child, love, hate and divorce her husband and ultimately pay little attention to her parents. That was how she hadn't noticed. Between Adrienne and Andrew hiding it and Serena being too absorbed in what her own life was becoming to see what her old life really was.

When he looked up, tears were streaming down her face. He feared he might actually have broken her. If anything had ever remained constant with Serena, it was her love for her child and parents. He had just told her one of those things was not what it had seemed for the majority of her life. He should have realised that even Serena could not take that without hurting.

Taking her hand gently, he replied, "Serena, they hid it. They hid it well so you could grow up with a normal, happy childhood. How were you meant to know?" Her dark eyes flooded over again,; the affinity he had had once shared with her suddenly returned now that she needed him too much to mistrust him. He could feel her reaching out to him with cautious reluctance, only because he held the information she needed.

"I'm his daughter," she explained. "I'm supposed to know my dad!"

"You did know him," Edward insisted. "You knew the man he allowed you to see. He loved you so much. That's why he made sure you never knew." He rubbed the top of her arm softly, trying to comfort her and curb the silent tears. "You can't know something you've never seen."

She wasn't accepting his reasoning, and he hadn't really expected her to. Persuading Serena of anything was a task and a half, but something like this might be damn near impossible. He reached around to the shelf under the coffee table and handed her some tissues. She didn't take them. Instead she turned away from him and tried to hide her pain; it was unmistakable to him that she was actually in pain.

Edward placed his palm on her went cheek and turned her head around, wiping away her tears with a tissue. He could feel her eyes locked with his, passing their feelings back and forth along one track between them.

He was baffled when her fingers traced his cheekbone. Why was she suddenly reciprocating his care?

"See, I actually like you when you're like this," she confessed quietly. It was completely bizarre to hear her say such a thing. Instantly he decided it was just the drink and the anguish talking. "Why can't you be like this all the time?"

"Hey," he protested. "I'm a nice guy!"

"Of course you are," she drawled at him. He heard the sarcasm and had to smile.

Shock paralysed him as her lips crashed into his. What was she playing at?! Had fifteen years of guarded animosity just gone down the drain? The paralysis seeped away slowly. Instinctively he kissed her back. She was his wife. In his heart, she always would be. But then he realised why she was doing this and his conscience forced him back, his hand still resting on the side of her neck. "No. No, Serena. You're too..." he trailed away as he attempted to find the right words. "You're in too much pain. I won't take advantage, especially when I'm the one that put you in this state."

"How terribly moral of you," she sneered angrily. He was taken aback by the sudden anger. "Never stopped you before."

It was a fair enough point, but he had his reasons. For one, Serena meant too much to him, even in their separated and strained state. Her eyes were glassy and distant, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know what was really going on behind them. He knew her well enough to know she was finding a way to torment herself.

"Do you want a cuddle?" he offered her with a smile. Though she never admitted it, he knew Serena secretly loved to be in the secure warmth of someone else's arms. She stood up quite shakily and stepped forward into his embrace. "I'm sorry for telling you all this. I'm sorry that it's hurting you. But I think it's time someone told you the truth."

"I never thought you would be the one to step up and tell me," she admitted cynically. He smiled gently and kissed her head, unable to stop himself feeling every emotion under the sun for her. He knew she wasn't going to let this go, and he was rather glad. She needed to pursue the truth from the right people. There were things he hadn't told her, things that weren't his place to talk about. Things she needed to ask Adrienne about. And then there were things Edward had been told about, seen and dealt with that he felt she couldn't know. He was cautious of what she could safely know.

Her arms were around his waist. It felt almost like they were married again, even if only for a moment. Like she had learned to lean on him again.

He was reminded of what it was like to actually be there for someone. He hadn't been there for anyone for a long time. Not really. He had forgotten that he was not the centre of the Earth and that there were more important things than what he wanted. But at the moment he knew he was there for Serena, and wished he had always been there for her. That he had never been stupid or weak. That he was something better than human.

But he was only human and he had to pay the price. He wasn't the only one who had paid the price, either. Both Serena and Eleanor had paid for his weak humanity. Andrew's humanity had killed him, and now Serena was paying the price for it in the form of heartache and tears. He couldn't help cursing the man but he could at least understand it.

"You know he loved you, don't you?" Edward asked quietly. "The fact he was an alcoholic doesn't mean he loved you any less than you thought he did. He was _so_ proud of you. Anyone who would listen, it was 'Serena this' and 'Serena that.' He loved you more than anything else in the world."

"Except alcohol, it would seem," Serena snapped. He saw why she would have thought that but Edward knew that Andrew had never loved alcohol. The man had always remained decent enough to loathe the thing that had such a bitter and brutal hold over him. Edward had watched him when he was drinking and, to him at least, it was clear that he resented it greatly.

"Needing something isn't the same as loving it."

She was holding herself tightly to him. He hadn't expected her to lay herself so bare. She was letting him in past her first line of defence. Her shield was broken and he had a feeling he knew why; not only had he shocked her, but he hadn't walked away. He was still here. By his own internal admission, causing a mess and walking away was an unfortunate talent of his.

He felt her lips against his neck but he was having none of it while she was vulnerable and drunk; again, he blamed the combination of pain and alcohol for her behaviour and would not succumb to it. He had long learned from his own mistakes that a temporary love could have permanent consequences for the ones he really did love. He didn't want to make such a mistake again.

He made his intentions clear as he changed his stance, his hand now on the back of her head. "You need to sleep," he accused gently. He felt the emotional exhaustion radiating from her body. She didn't deny it, much to his surprise and relief.

"I know," she sighed. He released her and examined her face. It was stained with a mix of teardrops and make up, and tainted white by shock and exhaustion. She was no less beautiful in his eyes, though, and definitely no weaker. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for having the guts to tell me the truth. At least now I know why you've always been so touchy about my drinking habits."

He simply smiled slightly at her. She was an impossible woman but when she had been softened by touch or by circumstance, she was very much a lovable person. "I just think you've got the right to know," he explained, pushing her hair out of her eyes with one finger. "You're a big girl now."

Serena let out a soft huff of a laugh. "It's not fair," she said. She almost sounded childish. "I thought my family was _normal_."

Edward laughed. "Believe me. There's no such thing as a normal family," he smiled. He patted her cheek lightly and added, "I'd better go. I'm in at eight in the morning."

She nodded. "Goodnight, Edward," she said. Her voice was hoarse, barely louder than a whisper.

"Goodnight, Serena. Don't let the bed bugs bite," he smirked.

"You're the only bed bug I've ever known," she quickly retorted. He laughed, coaxing a little smile out of her.

He left her house and tried to explain to himself how all that had come about. He couldn't understand exactly what had possessed him to point out to Serena that her dad was drunk in just about every family photo. For whatever naïve reason, he had expected Serena to take it and move on, but she seemed to have taken the realisation quite badly. Worse than he predicted, anyway. Her reaction had been to cry, which was a response never easily extracted from her.

She was acting very strange, and the more he thought on it as he started the engine, the more unnerving it was. She had kissed him, for crying out loud. Fifteen years of hating him and she goes and kisses him. He was having a hard time dissecting that one action into Serena's idea of solid logic.

Edward sighed. His big mouth had always been the source of trouble.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I'm not sure I like what I've written here but I'm in a rotten mood so that might be why. Hope it works anyway! thanks as always to everyone who has read and reviewed!**

**Sarah x**

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Serena opened the dreaded double doors with bitter reluctance. She should _not_ have had the last of that other bottle of wine after Edward left last night. She was paying for it now in the form of the world's worst headache. She watched Edward talking to Harry, giving him instructions of some sort, and when her ex-husband looked around her she quickly averted her gaze. She didn't want to let him in. She feared that it would only cause history to repeat itself.

She felt his fingers catch hers briefly as she passed him. What had she done last night that made him think it was alright to touch her? She was unsettled by the concern in his eyes as she stepped around him to find her iPad. "Are you OK?" he asked when Harry sauntered away to deal with a patient.

"Yeah," she lied, not looking. "Where the bloody hell is my iPad?" she asked with a hopeless sigh. Common sense was not her forte when she was hungover. She looked up when the familiar black object blocked her view of the pale desk. She looked up to find Edward smiling gently down on her. "Thanks," she grudgingly said. His stare was soft and caring; she didn't like it. That stare was the one that drew her in. It melted her sense of self-preservation as he silently reminded her that he still cared about her.

"If you want to talk..." he said, shrugging his shoulders in an offer to go through it all with her now that she was reasonably sober. "You know where I am."

She glared at Edward for his kindness; despite his display of good intention, she found trusting him quite difficult. When she met his eyes she saw he didn't believe she was fine. He knew her too well to believe that and it was probably time she accepted that. She couldn't quite decide if she needed him or not.

It was at that moment that she remembered kissing him.

"Thank you," she said, recalling his reaction. "Last night. Thank you for not taking advantage."

"Would I do that?!"

"Yes," she said honestly. He didn't deny it.

"Yeah, you're probably right. But not to you."

He walked away from her, left in a state of mild shock at his words. She had not seen him so moral in years. Was it true that he treated her differently in his heart than any other woman he had been with?

This was why she had wanted shot of him before Hanssen had decided the hospital needed him. She couldn't work out whether his intention was to bed her, help her or even perhaps love her. What she was finding even more difficult was to figure out was what she wanted from him. He was so ingrained in her personality – all that he had done to and for her and all she had always loved and hated him for – that there was still a thread between them, along which they pushed and pulled a mix of lies, truth, hatred and love.

It was only when they were in theatre two hours later and she could escape Edward that she finally said, "I lied."

He looked up from his clipboard, clearly surprised at her admission. "About what?"

"This morning, when you asked if I was OK."

"Knew it." She rolled her eyes at his complacency. "You're not infallible, Serena. Nobody is."

She remained silent, concentrating on this young woman's liver. For the first time, Edward's presence was actually distracting her. But oddly, it was a comfort. Her head was swimming in last night's alcohol and truths. She was unsure of how to proceed with what she had discovered. Was she meant to approach the subject with her mother? Was she supposed to force everything she could from Edward? Did she even want to know everything he knew?

"Are you going to see Adrienne?" he asked her.

"Why would I?" she snapped. In truth she hadn't decided whether to tell her mother what Edward had said. Not only did she not wish to distress her mum, but, for once, she didn't want to get Edward in trouble; there was no doubt in Serena's mind that Adrienne would have made Edward swear not to tell her about Andrew's hidden depths.

"Because she has a right to defend herself," he reasoned.

"Edward, how old am I?" she sighed. "Four-oh-prolene," she added to the nurse.

"Forty-six," he answered her.

"That's how many years she's lied to me," Serena said. She hated to admit how much the deception on her mother's part had actually hurt her. All her life, Adrienne had been the source of truth and love, a constantly light influence. But now she kept wondering if she had ever spoken the truth to her daughter.

"Serena..."

"No, Edward. Even if she didn't want me to know while he was alive, he's been dead seventeen years now. She should have told me. _You_ should have told me," she added. She had tried to keep that last remark inside her but she couldn't help but think Edward should have broken his silence long before now. He had claimed to love her and yet had kept secrets from her. And yet, she forgave him. She honestly believed that he was trying to save her from any pain.

"I know I should have," he admitted. "I know that now."

"I'm sorry," she sighed as she stitched up the liver. "I know you were trying to spare me all this hassle."

By the time the procedure was finished, Serena had convinced herself that Adrienne had kept her out in the dark out of malice, cowardice or selfishness. She looked at the clock, startled to find that it was already lunchtime. She washed her hands and went to leave the scrub room but she felt a warm and familiar hand grasp her upper arm before she got to the door.

"I'm taking you to see your mother," Edward informed her firmly. "Now. During our lunch hour."

Serena laughed. "You _are_ kidding? I don't even take a lunch break."

"You do now," he retorted, steering her by the shoulder out onto the ward. "Go and get changed back into your clothes."

"No."

"Yes," he said, and she could see there was no forcing him back. When he got like this, he was liable to make her life a nightmare until she did as he asked and, to be fair, he hadn't asked her for anything in years.

She walked straight into Harry Tressler as she stormed away in temper. "Hey! Watch it!" he shouted when the pile of ringbinders fell onto the floor. He knelt down and started gathering them up. "Oh, thanks for helping, Ms. Campbell!" he snapped.

"Believe me, Dr. Tressler," she grumbled. "If I get down there I won't be getting back up."

"Getting old, I see."

"Run and don't bother me!" she snapped, noticing that phrase didn't fall from her mouth as easily as it had done from her father's. It didn't sound the same with her English accent. She made a mental note to never, ever say it again.

To her surprise, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She expected Edward to be behind her, but it wasn't him. It was Mary-Claire Carter. "Don't get stressed, Ms. Campbell. You look like you're gonna blow a fuse," she said. Serena nodded in thanks for the reminder to keep calm; it wasn't often she felt any gratitude towards the red-headed gossip.

Serena nodded down to Harry. It was as close to an apology as he was going to get from her – nobody was under any illusions that the word 'sorry' was going to escape her lips towards Harry. He was still in the bad books over the whole rocket flare incident. The only reason he still had a job was that Edward and Ric had been there when she had confronted the boy over his extreme stupidity.

She stalked away to the locker room and quickly changed. She was annoyed that Edward was forcing her hand, but she was starting to have faith that he had her best interests at heart. She was frightened slightly by the prospect of confronting her mother. She didn't want to upset her but she was livid. How could Adrienne have actively hid _everything_? Did she have no conscience?

It was with shaking hands that she picked up her bags. It wasn't normal to be so nervous of speaking to her own mother. But then it wasn't normal to be so furious with her own mother, either. Frustration was a common emotion for Serena to feel towards Adrienne, but sheer hurt and anger was extremely rare.

The door opened and closed and Edward walked in. "Meet me at the front entrance," he ordered her softly. "And don't even think about not showing up. I know all your hiding places." She stared into his face and could see he was as apprehensive as she was about this. She was certain he was regretting kicking the hornets' nest. "It'll be fine, Serena. I just think you need to talk to Adrienne about all this. She can explain it better than I can."

Serena sighed and looked at the floor. She hated this. She hated having to lean on anyone, but particularly Edward. It only reminded her that she once had loved him dearly, and she was sure that somewhere deep inside her heart that feeling was rearing its head to haunt her. If only she could bury it once more, never to be found again.

She walked out in silence, trying to figure out some sort of theory in her head as to how she could have missed all this in the first place. Even though her parents and husband made efforts to conceal it, she should have seen the path her dad was stumbling down. She was not able to remember a time she had seen him drunk when he shouldn't have been. At ceilidhs and weddings, he had usually been legless by the end of the night but that was considered normal. There had been no hidden bottles, no drunken violence, no trace of an alcoholic she had seen in the man. And yet Edward insisted that was just what Andrew had been.

She leaned against the wall in of the hospital, watching the late November chill set in. It would soon be the dead of winter, something that, for the first time, she was dreading. It meant cold darkness, and she wasn't keen on the idea; it was strange for her to feel this way. Winter had never bothered her much before now.

She watched the storm clouds gather above her and she tried to work out if it was going to rain or snow. It was too early for snow – at least it was here – but it definitely felt cold enough.

It was only when she took a bizarre interest in Jonny Maconie walking across the car park with his earphones in and texting that she realised she was distracting herself. She was looking for anything but her own problems to think about as she waited for her ex-husband to come and get her. And speak of the devil, he was suddenly in front of her.

"Do I have to do this?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied, his smile tinged with sadness. "If you want to understand and accept everything that's happened, then you have to speak to your mum."

She started to walk towards Edward's car with a tight knot of anxiety forming in the pit of her stomach. What if she wasn't able to control her emotions? She had failed to do so last night and could vaguely recall crying in front of Edward. If he didn't know her so well she could have pretended it was just because she had been drunk, but she was well aware that he knew better.

But if she cried in front of her mother, she didn't know what she was going to say to negate it. And if she shouted at her mother, she was going to feel awful for it. But the bottom line was that they couldn't expect her to keep her emotions under complete control. Could they?

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to drop me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: So. I sustained a rather unpleasant head injury last night. Wheel off a Transit van fell on my head. Oh, the joy of a concussion! My head currently loathes loud noise and sunlight. Anyway - thanks to everyone who reads and reviews!**

**Sarah x**

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Serena stepped through her mother's front door in silence, Edward at her back. It had never been acceptable for family to knock on the McKinnies' door. Even as a child, relatives had walked in and out of the house as they pleased. Adrienne soon greeted them. "Rena, darling," she smiled. "And Edward too. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

At the sight of her mother Serena had the sudden urge to put her fist through the wall. The anger she felt was almost unreal. But she could feel it, so it had to be real. Edward's calming hand rested on the middle of her back, out of Adrienne's line of sight. "Serena," he whispered as Adrienne headed for the kitchen. "Sit down before you pass out."

In a daze she led him guide her into the familiar living room; they sat on the sofa. "Edward, I can't do this."

"You can."

"I don't want to know," she confessed quietly. "I don't want to know who he really was."

That admission of fear and cowardice took a lot from her; she never, _ever_ admitted to being weak. And to run from what everyone else knew was weak. At least it was to her. She couldn't account for Edward, Adrienne, Andrew or anyone else's perception of weakness. But she felt weak. Too blinded by fury to listen to her mother's reasoning and too weak to accept it even if she did have it in her to sit and listen.

Adrienne returned with mugs of coffee. Even after all these years, the woman still remembered how Edward took his and executed it flawlessly. "Right," Serena huffed. "I want an explanation out of you," she informed Adrienne, and even she heard the dangerous layer in her own voice. "Tell me about Dad."

"He was your father," Adrienne shrugged. "You knew him better than anyone. Better than me, even."

"No, you see," Serena said, her smile forced and bitter as she reminded herself to try and keep calm. "That's where you're wrong. I didn't know him at all, did I? I didn't know he was an alcoholic. Because that's exactly what he was, right, Mum?" she demanded.

Adrienne seemed quite taken aback, though whether it was because Serena was angry or because she hadn't broken anything in temper – yet – she was unsure. Edward was sitting abnormally close to her, as if waiting to grab her if she couldn't reign her anger in. "Serena," Adrienne finally sighed. "Your father was a good man. You have to understand that. He just had a problem. It never affected you. We made sure of that. You grew up like any other girl."

"Oh, well, that's alright then!" Serena exclaimed, her hands thrown in the air in caustic frustration that burned her heart and anyone who dared to get too close. "Don't you think I had a right to know my dad?!"

"You did know him!" Adrienne argued.

Serena stood up and started pacing the room in an effort to walk off the anger building up inside her again. Methodically she walked a perfectly straight line across the living room, back and forth over and over again. She didn't look up. "No, I didn't. Andrew McKinnie and my dad are two different people, Mum!" she shouted at the floor.

"That's the way it should be."

Serena instantly looked up at those words, dictating to her what was right and wrong, from the woman she could no longer trust. "What does _that_ mean?!"

"It means you got only the good parts of him," her mother explained, her voice frustratingly empty and level. "You grew up loving him. You grew up seeing him be a good father and a family man. You wouldn't be who you are today if you had known!" insisted Adrienne.

"I wanted to know _all_ of him! The good and the bad!"

"Believe me, Rena-"

"Do _not_ call me that!" snarled Serena. "I'm not your little girl." She watched hurt flash across the elderly woman's face but she was too wounded and angry to regret it. She felt Edward hovering behind her, waiting to make a lunge for her if necessary. She understood why he was on edge; she had been known to take a chunk out of someone if she was angry enough. "In fact," she laughed heartlessly at the realisation, "I don't think we ever were a family. Not really."

"Don't say that," Adrienne snapped. "Of course we're a family. You, me, Ellie, Edward, once upon a time," she added with a nod at Serena's protective ex-husband.

"Dad?"

"Of course."

"Then why lie?" Serena demanded. "You even lied about how he died!"

"He died in a car crash on the A9. You know all this," Adrienne said wearily. "He died at Ralia."

"Because he was drink driving," Serena added. "Oh, yeah. Did you forget to put that bit in?" she remarked, sarcasm flowing like poison from her lips. She couldn't help it. She was trying to understand but she couldn't justify all the lying. She couldn't justify how long it had all been hidden. "I always thought you were honest, Mum. I always thought you told me the truth, whether I liked it or not. But you've done nothing but lie. My whole life has been a lie. And if my whole life has been a lie, then so is who I am!"

She was trying to explain how she felt so her mother had a chance to apologise and say she understood why she was angry, but Serena had seen that look in her face before. She thought she was right. She was standing by her actions. "Who you are is who you were always meant to be."

"No. Who I was meant to be was who I would have been had nobody lied to me!" Serena shouted. She was so close to the brink of losing her temper that she felt her knees shaking under her.

"Serena, come on," she heard Edward warn her. She hadn't realised that she had stepped towards her mother, threateningly hovering as she attempted to keep her emotions under control. "This isn't the answer."

Serena stood up straight. "Do you know what?" she asked her mother; her voice was coming out as a harsh growl. "Don't bother. Don't bother calling me. Don't bother calling Ellie. I don't want to be a part of something that's nothing but a lie."

She took a last look at Adrienne, who was close to tears, and walked away. She didn't care. Caring only complicated matters, which in turn only caused her more pain. It wasn't worth it just to be told more lies, and for past lies to be passionately defended. She would not be moved on this and it was becoming increasingly evident Adrienne was just as adamant as her.

She knew better than to drive while she was so wound up so she sat in the passenger seat and waited for Edward to return. They still had time for lunch, since this visit had not taken half as long as she had been anticipated.

When he eventually came out five minutes later, he sighed and said, "She's in some state."

"Don't care," muttered Serena.

"Oh, Serena," he groaned. "You know I hate to see you two argue."

"Yeah, it's gone a bit beyond that," she pointed out. She had seen the look in Adrienne's eyes. She wasn't backing down, and Serena sure as hell wasn't going to let her off with forty-six years of lies. There were so many things she had wanted to ask about but she hadn't had time before darkness swallowed her and she exploded within it.

She heard the engine start. "I'm taking you home," he warned her.

"No. Take me back to work," she ordered him. She didn't look up but she felt his stare. She knew he was worried; the man couldn't help himself. He just had to constantly involve himself where he was neither wanted nor needed. She didn't need to see his face to know he was going to do as she said. He knew as well as she did that there was nothing worse for her than sitting at home on her own. She would only drive herself demented.

"Don't you want to get something to eat?"

"No."

"What if I do?"

"You can take an extra half hour when we get back to the hospital," she allowed, realising it wasn't fair to drag him out on his lunch hour and then deprive him of food just because she had lost her appetite.

"Got an answer for everything, as usual."

"Yep."

The exchange was tense and strained. Serena just wanted to get back to work so she didn't have time to think about what had just happened. She was still fuming.

"God help anyone who crosses you today," Edward sighed. She saw his point; even she wouldn't cross her today. She was too upset and wound up to take any crap off Harry, Sacha, Chrissie, Gemma or Mary-Claire when she got back. She was even willing to rip Sacha apart if the need were arise. Normally he was the exception to her wrath.

Five minutes later, he had pulled over in a layby. "What are you doing?" she asked, not really sure she even wanted to know.

"I'm not letting you go back to AAU like this," he replied.

She looked around. "When did you grow a spine?"

He ignored her barb and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked at it cautiously as she wondered what it was he actually wanted. She didn't know what his plan was, or what he was thinking of, but she knew what he was like. "Serena, you have to calm down. I can see it in your face. One word out of place and you're going to lose it."

"Don't be silly," she retorted, painting a smile onto her face. "I'll be fine. People argue with their parents all the time."

"You're not other people," he answered her. "I don't _care_ about other people, OK?"

She looked into his eyes and tried to make some order of what she found there. Frustration. Sympathy. Worry. Kindness. Friendliness...love? His hand moved into her hair and his fingers moved gently as he attempted to soothe all that she refused to admit to. "I'm OK, Edward. _Really_," she insisted. "But thank you," she found herself adding. "It's not your job to look after me, but here you are anyway."

He smiled gently and she kissed his cheek, suddenly thankful for Edward's reappearance in her life. She had forgotten how kind he was actually capable of being. When he wanted to, he could be a real source of support. Someone to rely upon. But she hadn't forgotten that his ability to screw up was just as great, and ever more prevalent.

He kissed her forehead gently; she closed her eyes as she felt his warm lips against her skin. "You can't expect to avoid Adrienne forever. Where do you think you get your persistence?" he reminded her softly. "She meant well."

"Doesn't excuse the fact she lied."

The silence fell over them with the deepening cold, only broken by the heaters Edward had left on. She felt his hands on her face and opened her eyes, staring into his. Part of her wanted to lean on him completely, to remind her she was human and very much breakable. But she knew that even if his touch could fix the damage, it would only be temporary and he was sure to make her regret it.

Their noses touched and she inched back a little. She was reaching out to him, after all these years apart, but she wanted to keep her hands clean. She wanted to be in complete control, because she couldn't shake the feeling that this life was not her own. It was what her parents had created for her. She wanted to be in control of something, anything, in her screwed up, messed up life. Her relationship with Edward seemed to be that one controllable thing remaining in her life.

Control it she would.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hellooooooooooo. Ignore me. I'm tired :P thanks again to everyone who has read and reviewed :D**

**Sarah x**

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"Where's Serena?" Edward asked Mary-Claire at half-past four. Not only did he need her to sign off on all this paperwork, but he had not seen her since he brought her back from Adrienne's house. The state he had had to leave his former mother-in-law made him uneasy. He saw the situation from both sides. He understood Serena's pain and anger. He understood why Adrienne had chosen to say nothing. But he didn't like the outcome.

"Um, she said she was going for coffee about an hour ago," the young Irishwoman replied. "Something doesn't feel right, Edward. I've seen her shout before but this isn't the same. If I didn't know better, I'd say she's disappeared somewhere to cry in peace."

"Ms. Campbell doesn't cry," Harry snorted from behind a computer. "Woman's practically made of stone."

"Want a bet?" Edward sighed, chucking paperwork down onto the desk in bitter resignation. "Hit anyone hard enough and they'll be on their knees. Even Serena."

"Who's hit her then?" Mary-Claire questioned the metaphor.

Edward didn't answer the question and instead said, "If Hanssen comes snooping, tell him Serena's ill and I've had to drive her home. Got it?"

"That'll sound like you're shagging her," Harry pointed out.

"Really?" Edward retorted sarcastically. "Right now I don't care what Hanssen or anyone else thinks. I want to know Serena's OK. So. Will you cover me or not?" he asked, glaring between the two youngsters sternly. The look at each other uncertainly. "Well?"

"Lying to Hanssen is never a good idea," Mary-Claire reasoned.

Harry added, "Letting Ms. Campbell do whatever it is she's doing is probably a worse idea. And lets face it. Hanssen hates me anyway. Nothing to lose, right?" he grinned. "Count me in."

"Ah, what the hell. Serena's more inclined to actually kill people than Hanssen is," she smirked. "Last thing we want is her to be upset. Go on."

"Thanks," Edward smiled sincerely. "I owe you."

"Bloody right!" Mary-Claire exclaimed.

Edward grinned and half-ran out of AAU, trying to think of all the places he had found Serena before. Bathrooms, store rooms, offices, unused side rooms, the roof...it had always been the roof where her father had been concerned. Right after he died, Edward had found her sitting cross-legged on the frosted roof, just staring out. He had always thought there was something about the cold that both comforted her and tortured her. With Serena, the pair came hand in hand a little too often.

He took the stairs two at a time, glancing out the window as he did so; the clouds were growing darker by the minute. Surely it was too early for the snow Edward had been feeling in the air all day? It was the penultimate day of November. But stranger things had happened. There were places in Britain where it snowed in October. September. April. June. _August_. The reminder made Edward very glad he had never permanently stayed in that area of Scotland. Even if he had been snowed in with the McKinnies up there a good few times, it had never been a permanent arrangement.

"Dr. Campbell?" a familiar voice stopped him. "Where are you going in such a hurry?" asked Henrik Hanssen.

"Um..." he said, trying to make up an excuse on the spot. "Have you seen Serena?" he sighed. If anyone was capable of discretion, it was Hanssen.

"Last time I saw Ms. Campbell, she was wandering the stairs wearing a very strange expression," the Swede replied. "Is there something you need to tell me?" he added, his voice quiet.

Edward hesitated. "Uh, no," he said. "No. She's probably just gone somewhere to clear her head."

"Why would she need to clear her head?"

"Believe me. You don't want to know," Edward answered rather darkly. "Thanks though," he added. He left Hanssen in a slightly confused daze when he continued to bolt up the stairs. He wanted Serena off the roof before it rained. Or snowed. Or whatever the hell the weather planned on doing.

He got onto the roof and saw her sitting dejectedly on one of the concrete blocks. "Shift over," he ordered her gently. She silently obeyed. "What are you doing up here? It's bloody freezing!" he said. He zipped his hoodie up as the cold set in about his body.

"Thinking," she whispered, barely audible over the increasingly fierce wind.

"Torturing yourself, more like." He reached out for her raw hand and took it in his. "You're _freezing_, Serena," he told her. Slightly taken aback that she was sitting up here in the cold wearing only her scrubs, he sighed and pulled off his sweater. He put it around her shoulders and took her cold hands in his. She had been sitting here for about an hour, so it was no wonder she was frozen.

She looked around at him, and he found himself staring into her dark brown eyes. All he found was confusion, anger and pain. He felt so bad for her but he knew she wouldn't accept him saying so. "Why are you doing this, Edward?" she asked him gently her voice was hoarse from the cold he could see was burning both outside and within her.

He paused, wondering what to say. There was only one explanation – the one he had always known was true – but he feared he had hurt her too much for her to take him seriously. But it was the truth. "Because I love you," he admitted. It made her look away, but she hadn't stormed off like he had expected her to.

She sat with her chin rested against her hands, leaning forward with her elbows on her thighs. "Do you know how hard it is to get my head around this?" she asked him.

"I can only imagine."

"I can't stand it. It's like...it's like I never knew them. My mum and dad, I mean," she clarified. He could see she was struggling with this whole 'opening up' lark, but it was clear that it was something she needed to do. "For all I know, Dad could have been this awful, vile man when he was drinking, couldn't he? And I never knew."

Edward kept silent for a moment. He had seen Andrew get nasty when he was drunk. He had seen him cause bar fights. He had seen him take a chunk out of Adrienne only once. But to tell that to Serena was not his place.

"You can't change the past," Edward reminded her. "If you'd known, you might have had a tricky childhood, screwed school up, never went to uni or med school, never would have become a surgeon, never would have met me, never would have had Eleanor..." he explained. "Never would have come this far."

She looked at him, her eyes soft and deep. When she was wounded, it was the best time to see through her almighty defences. It was the easiest time to see her heart; her walls were battered and weakened, and Edward knew it would only take another hard knock or two to completely tear them down.

"I don't even know why I'm taking this so badly," she admitted.

"You've had a bit of a shock," he explained; he squeezed her hands in his. "You're bound to be a bit confused. But you can't help him now, Serena. He's long gone."

She snorted bitterly. "There was nothing I could do for him when he was still alive," she sighed. "Because nobody ever told me."

Edward groaned inwardly. He could understand this better than she could, and that was what was worrying him. It was never a good sign when Serena didn't know her own mind. She was a confident, self-assured woman until it came to her family, and that was at the best of times – something this occasion was most definitely not.

"I'm so sorry, Serena," he whispered, pressing his face into her hair. "I'm so sorry you had to find all this out. But you had to know. Don't you see that you were within inches of becoming like Andrew?" he asked her. "I couldn't let that happen to you."

"Because you love me," he heard her sneer scornfully. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you say."

"I do," he insisted. "I've screwed up. I know that. And I'm truly sorry. And I don't care if you love me or hate me. I won't leave you to work this out on your own." He looked down to see her face, and he saw her resolve buckling through her shining eyes. "Have you spoken to your mum?" Serena shook her head. "Don't you think you should? You know, set things straight?" Another shake of the head. She would not be moved. Not on this. She was too stubborn.

He rubbed his hands against hers, hoping the friction would warm her up. She had come up here to torture herself; he had seen her do it before, when she had come back to work after her dad's funeral. Every day for a week she had stood in the freezing cold in her scrubs, denying herself the protection of a sweater or coat. He didn't know what she achieved by doing it, but it was a habit Edward had always found slightly disturbing.

"Come on," he said to her. "Back inside before your fingers and toes turn black and drop off."

She grudgingly stood up, their hands still tangled together. "I'd forgotten, you know," she said through the wind.

"Forgotten what?"

"How good a man you can be," she replied. He looked over her face, surprised by the admission that he wasn't as bad as she liked to make out. Her cheeks were raw and red, her eyes glistening with the reflection of his face and the storm clouds above. He could see the beginnings of cracks on her lips from sitting in the cold too long. He watched those lips as they moved again. "For the record, Edward, I don't hate you. Not really. I just..."

"Can't trust me?" he guessed.

"I would trust you with my life."

"But not with your heart."

"I shouldn't," she said. "I shouldn't believe in you. But I do. And do you know why?" she asked him. She took her hands out of his grip, her fingers lingering on his cheek. He let her have control of the situation, because he knew that in times like these, control was what kept her functioning.

"Go on then," he smiled. "Amaze me."

"You told me the truth. It took you seventeen years, and you knew it was going to hurt me, but for the first time, you stood up and told me the truth," explained Serena. "So thank you."

He leaned in towards her, seeing how she was going to react as he leaned in. He felt the wind blow around them, and the first snowflakes of winter – premature as they were – hit his face as Serena pulled it down towards hers. Her face was frozen as his hand fell onto her cheek, her lips ice against his as he closed his eyes and let her kiss him. He was human. He succumbed, kissing her gently and carefully in return.

She broke away, her face anxious as she hastily searched his. The only expression he could come up with was one of shock. He glanced around to find snow swirling around them in the start of what he recognised was going to be a blizzard. "I..." she began, but he watched her search for words that weren't there. He pressed his lips into hers, the taste of sweet coffee falling into his mouth; he felt her arm curl around his neck, pulling him down until he was crushed against her. She was warming up now, despite the snow and wind, and her passion was cautious and pained.

He pulled off her. "Now will you _please_ get yourself inside?" he asked her. She smiled, but he saw she was forcing back confused tears. He wasn't sure that she would benefit from leaning on him, not in the long-term, but it seemed she had accepted that she needed someone for a little while. Someone who truly knew her.

He guided her inside, his hand on her lower back as he shut the door behind them.

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**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: SO. I'm being depressing because I've had a bad week. Sorry. As always, thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed.**

**Sarah x**

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Serena sat in her office at around eleven when Edward walked in, closing the door silently. It had been a fortnight since she had kissed him; she hadn't addressed the matter and, to her surprise, he hadn't pushed it. She was trying to discern loving him from needing him, and it wasn't easy. The two were too tangled. "Serena," he said gently. Oh, no. She hated when he got _that_ look in his eyes. "Your mum's been taken ill."

Serena's heart jolted in her chest. The last three occasions Adrienne had been admitted had been horrible for Serena. She had hated to watch her mother struggle. "Why are you telling me?" she asked coldly, despite her inward terror.

"Oh, for God's sake, Serena!" Edward retorted. "Really? You're going to be like that, are you?"

"Like what?"

"She's still your mother," he reminded her. Serena saw his frustration but, truthfully, she was still furious with her mother. Usually her frustrations and annoyance with Adrienne dissipated after a few days, or when she got sick, but not this time. This time she had crossed a line Serena feared they could not retreat back over.

"She's a patient at this hospital and will be treated as any other patient would be," Serena dictated to him, inwardly horrified at how much like Henrik Hanssen she had just sounded. Cold and uncaring. She almost got up and followed her instinct to run and find her mum, but she battered that instinct down almost as soon as it reared its head. "Now, if you will excuse me, I'm needed on Darwin," she lied, but Darwin was a cheerful place these days and she was perhaps hoping that some of that brightness would rub off on her if she visited often enough.

She bumped into Michael Spence, looking both amused and worried. It was an expression that always worried Serena, but today she was determined to keep her distance from all of it. "Mommy's here," he smiled. "She's OK but she needs an operation and a hug."

"Well, the operation is your job and she'll have to find someone to give her a hug if she wants it that badly," Serena snapped. Michael was clearly taken aback her frosty reply, more so that she hadn't even asked what procedure was going to be needed.

"What's going on?" he asked her. "Normally when she's in here, nobody can keep you away from her." Serena didn't answer for fear of blurting the whole mess out to the American. Maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad thing but she could bring herself to tell him anyway. Even if she wanted him to know and was sure of it, she wouldn't have been able to find the words to explain the rift between them.

Despite her icy ruthlessness, Serena did sneak a glance over at her mother when she was leaving the ward. She actually looked ill this time. Pale and weak, she lay sleeping. She could not resist quietly sneaking in and looking through her treatment plan. It was a serious operation.

She brought herself to walk away, trusting that she was in good care whether her daughter sat and held her hand or not. Holding someone's hand did little to actually help anything, especially when it was a façade. When she reached the lifts, Jonny Maconie was standing with a tray of cups from the café. "I see Miss Naylor is still refusing maternity leave," she smirked; Jac was eight months pregnant, stubborn as hell and using the father of her child as a slave.

Jonny just grinned, taking a cup out of the tray. "Here. You look like you need it more than Elliot. He's just been called into theatre anyway."

"Thanks," Serena cautiously replied, taking it from his free hand. "So. Is she in a better mood today?" Yesterday, the pregnant redhead had taken an epic mood swing and gone from laughing to shouting in under a minute; Mo had eventually given up on calming her down and called Serena, who had a talk with Jac and managed to reign her in with the threat of forced maternity leave.

"Aye. Insisting the baby's not getting dressed in pink though. Sounds like purple might be her thing," Jonny grinned widely; it was easily seen that the prospect of fatherhood excited him to no end. Serena didn't doubt that the parents-to-be were doing a marvellous job of driving each other up the wall.

"Does Jac think pink will turn your daughter into a girly-girl or something?"

"Excuse me!" Jonny exclaimed in mock outrage at her insinuation. "My daughter will be a Daddy's girl, definitely, but she's gonna grow up playing football and shinty and she'll be doing hiking and stuff too. No kid of mine is gonna be a girly-girl."

"So there _is_ something you two agree on then," Serena smirked as the lift doors opened and they got out.

"Ms. Campbell," a familiar voice called out. "Can I have a word please?" It was Jac, shouting across the ward for her. Serena sighed and resigned herself to the idea that she was to be dragged into Jac Naylor's office and presumably given a hundred and one reasons why she didn't need more than a fortnight's maternity leave.

"How can I help?" Serena smiled as she walked into the office. Her phone rang loudly; she looked at it to see Edward's caller ID on it and sighed. She cut him off and put her phone on vibrate.

"Why aren't you with your mum?" Jac shot at her. That was Jac all over – no messing about and straight to the point. "Have you fallen out with her?"

"None of your business."

"You know, Serena," Jac began as she sat into her chair with a slight groan. "Parents don't mean to screw us up. Yeah, they do it anyway, and all too often they make a good job of it, but they don't mean to screw us up."

"Who says I'm screwed up?" Serena retorted. She was not comfortable with Jac knowing something was up. That there was something lurking beneath the glare, the laugh and the smart mouth.

"That look on your face." There was a tense silence between them as Serena tried to find a way of wriggling out of it. But it was Jac; there was no wriggling out of anything when it came to her. She was too good at seeing the lies behind the faces and the words. "And Michael said you left your mum on Keller without even seeing her," Jac admitted.

"I should have known," Serena sighed. "Look, Jac. Yes, we've fallen out," she confessed harshly. "No, I'm not speaking to her. And no, I'm definitely not going to see her."

Jac stared at her. "And what if something happens? What if she-"

"Don't!" Serena snapped. "Don't guilt trip me." She spun on her heel to walk away from Jac.

"Wait." The order came as a sharp bark from Jac, and it rooted Serena to the spot. She didn't turn back until she heard the woman stand up. "Do you think I'm going to be able to avoid hurting her for all her life?" Jac asked, touching her bump lightly. "Of course not. Have you ever unintentionally hurt Eleanor's feelings?" Serena didn't answer. "Of course you have. Just because we do things with the best of intentions, Serena, doesn't mean we can avoid hurting people we love."

It froze her to realise that Jac must have had family problems of her own to have this insight. "And what if it's not done with good intent?" She was still trying to work out whether stupidity or malice had driven Adrienne to lie and hide everything that went on. Had she really been trying to protect her, or had she only been protecting Andrew?

Serena felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Edward. Michael had probably grassed her up.

"Then you hit the road and never look back," Jac smiled sadly. "But I don't think that's what's happened here. My mother abandoned me. Yours is still here. And when your mother is gone, it leaves a hole that will never be filled no matter how much you try."

Serena was speechless. She had never known that Jac had been abandoned by her mother, or the trauma and lasting effects of that. Perhaps it explained Jac's guarded nature and icy exterior. Serena looked at her phone as it started buzzing again. Edward. Again. What did he want now?!

"So, Serena. You go down there and you do whatever it is that you need to do. Just in case." Serena nodded silently and headed for the door, allowing a little smile back at Jac when she added, "Good luck."

"Thank you."

Feeling slightly more optimistic, she headed for the lift. Her phone rang again. "I'm fine, Edward. I just had to go and speak to Jac Naylor. And yes, I've survived," she joked, having told Edward about Jac's little episode yesterday. There was only silence on the other end of the line. "Edward? You still there?"

He cleared his throat, and heard something strange and thick in his voice when he spoke. "Serena, you should get down here, OK?"

"Why? What's happened?"

"Just get to Keller," he ordered her gently. "I'll explain when you're down here." She hung up the phone with a knot of dread forming in her stomach; what had happened? She'd only been away twenty minutes at the very most. What could have happened in that space of time?!

She half-ran onto Keller, halted by Edward. "Edward, what's happened?!" she demanded. She looked around the corner to an empty bay. "Where is she?"

"In theatre," he replied. His hands were on her arms, and his eyes were shocked and glassy. "She had an infected ulcer in her stomach and it's burst into her bloodstream. Michael's taken her in but-"

"She's going to die," Serena blurted out her worst fear.

"No, Serena," Edward tried to calm her. She felt herself disintegrating into fear and worry in the middle of the ward, unable to move into a more private place to address the matters forced upon her. "Don't think that."

"She is! I can feel it. She's going to die."

"Michael's in there working his backside off," Edward informed her gently. "He's a good surgeon."

Serena knew all this. She knew Michael was a talented surgeon and she knew he was doing everything possible to save Adrienne. But it didn't ease her mind. Only an hour ago she had never wanted to speak to Adrienne again, but now the prospect of not being able to take that back terrified her.

She could vaguely feel Edward's familiar grasp guiding her to her office, where she could fall apart in private if she felt the need. She didn't know what she felt. Did she even care? She had said earlier that she didn't. Despite the fear of her death, Serena could not banish the anger with her mother. It was still there, still urging her to rip the woman apart for all she had lied about. Serena was torn. Completely torn.

The door shut but Edward hadn't walked away. "Come here," he sighed gently. She turned to face him with her eyebrow raised but he was seeing through her with unnerving ease; he didn't back down. Instead he took a step towards her. She mirrored his movement and let him hold her tight. She had had enough now. She was emotionally and mentally exhausted. She had barely got her head around one thing and now her mother was fighting for her life under Michael Spence's scalpel.

"This is mad."

"I know."

"Everything's happening at once."

"I know."

"I don't think I can take anything else."

He put her and arms length and fixed her hair lightly with his fingers. She felt him staring into her, and for once she allowed it. She pulled down her guard and immediately regretted it. The confusion and pain she had attempted to stamp down rose like a wave until she was, yet again, close to tears. She had cried more in the past fortnight than she had done in years and years.

"I know."

He kissed her cheek and hugged her close to him. She felt the warmth of his body against hers. It melted the frozen point of view within her. Now that she had forced her walls down to the ground, she could feel his warmth and it melted the icy hatred and intensified the burning dread searing through her.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Please don't hate me.**

**Thanks, as always, to everyone who has read and reviewed!**

**Sarah x**

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Edward could see Serena's nerves becoming increasingly frayed; she wouldn't tell him what she was thinking, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Serena had a talent for tormenting herself when disaster struck her life. After over an hour with her, his hand fell on her leg; she looked up accusingly at him and he immediately retracted his hand. The shutters were going up.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Force of habit."

She sighed. "Can you do me a favour?" Edward waited for her to speak. "Could you go and ask Michael how it's going?"

"Of course," he answered. He patted her shoulder lightly and went away out of the office and onto the ward. He closed his eyes and silently wished upon whatever star was up there that the niggling fear for Adrienne was unfounded and she was going to be alright. Logically, he knew there was only so much trauma a body of her age could take before it gave up; the woman's mind was unbreakable, but he feared her body had broken under the strain.

He stepped up to the observing area and looked through the glass as Michael and his team were struggling to do any good. "How's it going?" he asked through the intercom. "Her highness has sent me for an update."

"Uh, OK," Michael replied, but he was less than convincing.

"Truthfully."

"Not so great," he had to admit. "I don't think she's gonna pull through this one."

Edward's heart sank; he had been half-expecting that but it didn't soften the blow. "OK. What do I tell Serena?" he asked the American.

He laughed with no humour. "She's _your_ wife. Well, she was."

Edward was lost; he had broken news of a parent's death to Serena before, but not like this. He had had to do it over the phone, at a payphone in Inverness all those years ago. But here he was face to face with her. There was no running. There was no hanging up on her for some relief before he had to comfort her.

"Oh, crap!" Michael yelled as the alarms sounded. "It's no good. Even if I get her closed up the infection is going to kill her. But Rena needs to talk to her..." he muttered away to himself "Right. Paddles!" Edward looked up to see Michael holding the paddles, shocking Adrienne. He did it over and over but Edward knew it was no use. The war was over. "OK," he sighed after the sixth attempt. "Are we all agreed?"

"No," Edward whispered to himself; he didn't want to lose Adrienne. She was the only one who had remained on good terms with him, even after all he did to Serena. But he had to let her go. He had no choice.

"Time of death, twelve twenty-seven," he declared. "I'm sorry, Edward," he added, looking straight at him. He nodded and watched as Michael closed his mother-in-law up, making her presentable once more, before her daughter got to see her.

What was he going to tell Serena? How was he going to stop her ripping Michael apart for the death of her mother, even though she knew Michael well enough to know that he tried his utmost for every one of his patients, and probably even more so for Adrienne? How was he going to stop her hitting the bottle like he knew she would? How was he going to help Eleanor as she lost the only grandparent she ever actually got to know? How was he going to be a good father and a good husband? Because, even if they had been divorced now for most of the time they had known each other, he still loved Serena dearly, like she was still his wife.

She wasn't going to take this easily. It occurred to him only now that the women had unfinished business that could now never be resolved. They had lies to explain and explanations to accept, and now none of that could happen.

When Michael stepped out of theatre it was with a look of pained dread on his face; Edward took pity on him and offered, "I'll do it. I'll tell Serena."

"No," Michael argued. "No, I'm Adrienne's consultant. It's my job."

"But she might go a bit mental at you," Edward warned solemnly, knowing how much it was going to hurt Serena.

They stared at each other for a long moment before agreeing in unison, "Together."

"Together," Edward repeated under his breath, wondering how far Serena was going to be pushed by her mother's death. He made a mental note to hide every bottle of alcohol she possessed. And then watch her all night. He knew better than to burden Eleanor with the version of Serena now unknown to everyone but him – a total nightmare.

It was with unwilling legs and a heavy heart that he approached his ex-wife's office. He glanced around at Michael, who looked like here was the last place he wanted to be. Cautiously he opened the door and Serena jumped to her feet. He tried to hide the expression on hid face but he could tell she had seen it.

"Oh, no," she moaned, her hands over her mouth.

"Serena, sit down," Edward warned her. She remained standing, so he took her by the elbow. "Darling, sit _down_," he said, kicking himself for slipping back into gentle pet names. What worried him was that he was not called out on it. She didn't even glare at him. She only obeyed him. Never a good sign.

"I'm so sorry," Michael said, sitting on the edge of the desk. "Her heart...it just gave up."

Edward waited for the explosion but, much to his discomfort, she appeared deadly calm. She just sat there, staring at the floor. "Did she say anything before you took her into theatre?" Serena asked mechanically.

"She was unconscious. She wasn't able to say anything," answered Michael.

"I've got work to do," she said, getting to her feet as Edward's hand fell into hers. She tried to pull it away but he tightened his grasp; he refused to allow her to press on like nothing was amiss. She was too good at that. "Let me go, Edward."

Michael stood up straight. "Serena, even you can't pretend you're OK when your mom dies," he informed her. "You've got to react some way or another."

Her head snapped around to Michael and Edward jumped to his feet. She was suddenly full of visible anger and acute agony. "You want me to react?" she demanded. She threw Edward off and picked up the phone, throwing it at Michael's feet. He looked startled so Edward lunged forward and grabbed Serena by the waist, knowing better than to try and take her by the arms – she was more than liable to punch him in the face. It left her free to knock her files off her desk in temper, and Michael jumped back so they didn't hit him.

She tried to throw him off but he wrapped his arms around her so she couldn't advance on Michael. She was more angry than she was letting on; this wasn't the sarcasm she claimed it to be. "Calm down," he whispered in her ear. "Serena, calm down. Close your eyes," he reminded her of what he had taught her to do when she couldn't handle a situation. "Take a breath. Count to ten."

He felt her breathing slow down against his arms, and he could hear her slowly counting under her breath. He looked up and nodded at Michael, indicating to him that it was working. She stopped counting but he felt her breathing become ragged and broken. "Get out," she whispered, just loud enough for them to hear.

Michael nodded. "I am so sorry, Serena," he said. Serena nodded her head before Michael left.

"You and all," she ordered Edward.

"I'm not going anywhere," he replied. He pressed his lips into the side of her head and squeezed her tight. She forced herself from his grasp and turned to face him. She was silently threatening him, but her eyes told him a different story. "I won't go. You can't make me leave you."

Serena pushed him away from her but he caught her by the shoulders and steadied himself. "Go," she growled at him.

"No."

"You don't get it, Edward!" she shouted at him. "I _need_ you to go!" But he did get it. She wanted rid of him so she could sit down and cry. "I need you to leave me alone."

He sat back down on the small sofa, making it clear that he intended to stay here with her until she opened up and started to grieve. He was unwilling to allow her to do now what she did seventeen years ago. "Sit," he told her.

"I'm not a dog." He stared her into silence until she relented and placed her body down next to his. "She's gone," whispered Serena. "She's actually gone."

"I know," he replied. There was nothing else he could say. Instead of speaking, he reached out for her hands and took them in his so she knew he was there for all the support she needed. The pain of Adrienne seared through him too; the woman had meant more to him than he had told her. While married to Serena, Adrienne had been a better mother to him than his own had often been, and had made sure his stupidity didn't cause him too much bother. Because, after all, he _was_ stupid and while Adrienne never failed to tell him so, she also usually gave him advice on how to sort his messes out.

Serena looked up at him and he felt her stare slicing through him. "I was on my way down here to tell her it was OK. I was going to tell her that we were fine, that I'm not holding what she did against her," she explained. "Jac made me see she was trying to be a good mother to me by not letting me see all the madness. I was going to tell her," she insisted, and Edward's resolve started to crack as tears welled up in his own eyes.

He had known that Michael had phoned Jac to warn her Serena was going up there in a mood. He just hadn't known Jac had managed to talk some sense into her. "OK," he sighed. "It's OK. I'm sure she knew you were just hurt. She knows you love her."

"But I was so horrible to her," Serena argued. "I told her to stay away from me..."

"She knows you were just sounding off, Serena," he reassured her gently. "She wouldn't want you to beat yourself up, would she?" he pointed out to her. "She would want you to forgive yourself for getting upset, because it's perfectly understandable. She knew she was wrong. You know you were wrong. So it's OK," he concluded.

He felt her search his face for some reason and sense. "That day we went to her house and I walked away...what did she say to you?" she asked.

Edward shrugged. "Just that she should have known it would come out in the end, and that she shouldn't have lied to you all this time. She really was sorry," he told her what had been said as he rushed out of Adrienne's house.

"So am I," Serena admitted.

"It's alright." She nodded and he watched as the first tears fell down her cheeks. It set him off and before he could stop himself, he started silently cry with her. He carefully put his arm around her and hugged her tightly, taking just as much comfort from her touch as he was giving to her. He felt her arm around him, and she was pulling him closer.

His free hand was in her hair, his tears mixing with hers as he leaned his face against her cheek. This was more than Serena could take, he realised. This was more than she knew how to take. He couldn't help but think it was his responsibility to look after her, and make sure she stayed sober. He didn't want a repeat of what he had had to force her out of when Andrew had died. To see her destroy herself was too painful, and this time he feared that if she was allowed down that route, she would not find her way back, even with his help.

But this time he would not even allow her to set foot down the road to her own downfall. She had too much to lose. And above all, he couldn't watch her lose herself. That would necessitate in losing the Serena Campbell he loved to this day.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: This is an odd chapter, but I hope it works. Thank you again to everyone who has read and reviewed so far!**

**Sarah x**

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Serena opened her front door and kicked her shoes off, acutely aware that she was being followed by Edward doing the same. Was he waiting for her to fall apart? Was he waiting for her to need him? She would never need him again; she had vowed that to herself many years ago. She felt around for the light switch and tried to ignore how her fingers trembled. She shouldn't have allowed Edward to convince her to go home. She needed to work. She needed to be distracted.

"Wine," she muttered to herself, heading to the kitchen. Her hand was no sooner on the bottle when a warm hand fell on hers and took it from her. She looked up.

"Not the answer," he told her gently.

"It is just now," she insisted, yanking it ruthlessly from his grasp. Feeling the need to both dull what was ripping through her heart and prove to Edward that she was in complete control of herself, she poured a large glass and started downing it quickly, willing it to do its worst to her. She felt his hands lock around her wrists and looked up at him.

She felt him getting under her skin, his thumbs rubbing gently against her wrists. "Listen to me," he ordered her. "Please, just don't crawl inside a bottle, Serena."

He didn't understand that it was the only thing she knew how to turn to. The bottle didn't judge her. It didn't tell her to grow up. It didn't tell her when she was wrong. It just made her forget. And forgetting was exactly what she wanted to do. Edward, for once, could go and deal with his daughter and Serena could go away and just forget any of this had ever happened.

She just wanted to live in ignorant bliss again. She wished she had never dragged the truth to to the surface, and she wished she had never let it come between her and Adrienne. Wine glass still in hand, she pulled herself away from Edward. She loved him. She needed him. But she didn't want him. She didn't want him to remind her that she was putting herself in danger; he knew all too well just how much her very nature put her mentality in danger. All those years ago, the shock and pain of her father's death had allowed her, for a time, to travel through life without thinking or feeling for anything but her own destructive self-preservation. It had allowed her sense of what was right for her and what was damaging to her to become warped and backwards. It had allowed her to come within an inch of destroying herself, or so Edward had always told her.

She looked straight at Edward and finished the glass, seeing the bereaved and desperate look in his eyes. It was a twisted sort of comfort to know she wasn't the only one hurting. She knew Edward had always loved Adrienne. Even all these years later, and despite Adrienne's reservations, they had always got on like a house on fire. They understood each other. Serena was not selfish enough to disregard the idea that Edward had suffered a loss just as she had.

She watched silently as he picked up the bottle and took it out of her reach. "Trust me," he whispered. "Just trust me."

"I can't," she replied. "I can't get through this without something to help."

"Hey, hey, hey," he sighed, taking her by the hands and squeezing lightly. "We can face tomorrow if we can just get through today."

"And I can't get through today unless I forget," she growled at him. She was angry with his well-meant interference. She was angry that he was trying to keep her sober when being sober meant she had to remember everything. He was forcing her to remember that she hadn't spoken to her mother for a fortnight before she died, and that their last conversation was more of a fight than anything else. He was making her recall that she was a terrible daughter and always had been to both her parents. That her behaviour rendered her heartless. Worthless.

She watched him fight with himself over what was right and what was easy. She had it in her to torment him until he succumbed and gave her back her one source of relief. "Eat something," he finally whispered. "Make sure you eat first."

"Why are you-"

"Because you're going to do it anyway, the second I turn my back," he explained bitterly. "At least if I'm here, I know you're safe." Taken aback by his rough and unflinching honesty, she reached into the cupboard for baked beans and bread. The can fell with a loud echoing bang onto the counter, and she stared at it for a moment. It was only when Edward's hand took it from her view that she blinked.

She watched him open it and pour it in the pot, unnaturally mesmerised by the plain movements he was making. She had missed just watching him and all his simplistic charm. She had missed his touch and how it always somehow halted her. She had missed _him_.

In a few minutes he was handing her a plate of beans on toast, digging into his own. She had forgotten that Edward had always been one for routine when it came to food, and that today's events would have put that completely off course. "What?" he asked her.

She tore her gaze away from him, realising that she had stared at him too long. "Nothing," she murmured.

"Eat up," he commanded her, pressing her fork into her hand. Reluctantly she took it; she was not particularly hungry but she knew it was the condition on which he was going to allow her a drink. "You'll be OK," he reassured her. "You're always OK in the end." She looked up at him as she forced down a mouthful of food. She felt like telling him she was sick of just being OK. She was sick of being strong. She was _sick_ of being the pillar of solidity.

He sighed as she returned her concentration to her meal, biting her tongue. She leaned against the counter, suddenly exhausted. She heard a smash and looked to the pale floor to see her wine glass shattered on the floor. She groaned to herself and went in the tall cleaning cupboard for the dustpan and brush.

"Let me," Edward offered, setting his plate down on the worktop.

"I'm fine," she replied, crouching down. She felt him kneel beside and her patience broke. "I'm fine, Edward!" she shouted, her eyes closed as she attempted to calm herself. "Go and sit in the living room so you don't cut your feet." He didn't move. "Just go, Edward!"

She heard him sigh and rub her back for a moment before he got up and took his plate through. Carefully she picked up the largest shards of curved glass and placed them in the dustpan. A sharp pain hit her hand and she looked to see red blood pouring onto her skin like poison and pressure leaving her body. She lifted the glass, tainted red already, hovering doubtfully over the pale skin of her forearm.

With the skill of a surgeon she sliced through her skin with such care that she was sure it would not need medical attention, watching the blood flow from her veins. The physical pain it caused her was no more than she deserved. Poison dripped onto the light wooden floor.

"Forgot my fork," Edward told her as he walked in the door. "I swear I'd lose my head if it wasn't stuck to my shoulders."

Serena said nothing, only realising now the severity of what she had just done. She had just deliberately injured herself and, if she was thinking medically, that was enough for a call up to psych. Edward had been wrong. She wasn't going to be OK.

"Serena?" he asked. She sensed him down at her level and closed her eyes as he looked over her shoulder at the mess. "Oh, God. Did _you_ do that?" She opened her mouth to speak but she was silenced by her own actions, barely able to believe she had cut herself in an effort to relieve herself of the agony that pulsed through her veins, built up through loss, lies and guilt.

Guilt.

She did this. She killed her mother. If she hadn't gone in with all guns blazing, Adrienne might not have got so stressed. She might have taken better care of herself. She would have been stronger. Serena would have been there to help her.

"I killed my mum," she whispered. "Edward, I killed her."

"You _know_ that's not true," Edward answered her, and she felt his face pressed into her neck as he tried to comfort her.

"If I hadn't barged in and upset her, this never would have happened," she asserted quietly, fixated by her blood trickling down her arm. "She would be alive if I had watched my mouth." She looked around, expecting an expression of unwilling agreement upon his face. Instead, though, he looked slightly tortured but, as he leaned in and rested his head against hers, loving. "What have I done?"

Edward sighed, the warmth of his breath falling onto her face. "No," he whispered. "No, Serena. If that's the outlook you have, that if you hadn't overworked her she would be alive right now, then no. If anyone is to blame for that, it's me," he explained. "I told you everything. I kicked this all off. Don't hate yourself. Hate _me_."

Serena shook her head. "All you did was tell me the truth. You're not responsible for what I did about it."

His arms were slipped around her waist as she wiped the blood away with her hand. She felt him cuddling into her just like they used to. Just like he did when Andrew died – on the few occasions that she had allowed it. His lips kissed her temple softly and she closed her eyes, remembering what it was to be so close to someone. She had always loved Edward, and she had always denied it, but to feel him here with her was a reminder that she loved him.

If alcohol and glass didn't help, then maybe _he_ would. Maybe Edward was the key. She kept her eyes closed and searched for his lips, catching them in hers so softly that if she didn't know the feel of him, she could have sworn she had missed. She could feel his lips move with hers, and she pulled him slowly down to the floor with her, away from where she knew the broken glass lay. He pinned her down, his strong hands pressed against her hips.

He was kissing the side of her neck when she realised she couldn't deal with this without him. She had lost a parent before and had needed him desperately. This time the loss itself was tangled in the heartache of the way it happened – more than she alone could take.

She kissed his collar bone in an attempt to keep him close and stop him leaving her again. But that was why this couldn't happen. He was going to leave her again. The very thought of losing everyone she loved – bar her daughter – brought a lump to her throat and tears to her eyes. And yet she found his mouth again and kissed him fiercely. That electric flash they had always shared had not weakened in the slightest. She just couldn't trust him.

The tears overflowed onto her cheeks, choking on her breaths as she tried to stifle her sobs with her back to the floor and her ex-husband leaning into her. "I can't," she whispered. "I need you. I _need_ you, Edward," she confessed urgently. "I need you like we are. I can't risk messing up whatever bizarre friendship we've managed to dig up. I need you to just..."

"Love you?" he suggested. She nodded silently and, to her amazement, he smiled. "That's all you needed to say, Serena," he explained. She let him pull her upright; they leaned their backs against the cupboards side by side. With caution she let her head fall onto his shoulder, glancing at the drying blood on her arm.

Her eyes moved to the wine on the counter. She couldn't trust herself. She couldn't truly trust Edward. The only thing she knew how to trust was a glass bottle. And when Edward backed off, as she knew he would, she intended to use that trust to numb the harsh fury and anguish that ripped through her every time her sharp mind was left dormant.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: This is a ridiculous time to be awake, never mind uploading. Sorry about that. Thanks, as always, to everyone who has read and reviewed!**

**Sarah x**

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Edward woke on a sofa he only knew was not his own; if it was the one he knew, his back would have felt like it was broken in a dozen places. He breathed in an immediately recognised the scent of alcohol, coffee and perfume. He was in Serena's house. Adrienne was dead. He got to his feet and followed his first instinct to find Serena. It still surprised him how much he still cared for her, even after all these years apart.

He climbed the stairs quietly and looked into her bedroom. She lay asleep, an empty bottle lying on the floor. He sighed in despair. This was the road he was trying so hard to steer her away from. She was too easily led by a bottle and the dampening effect it had on the memory. If she kept going like he suspected she had been for years, she was going to end up like her parents – an alcoholic like her dad, isolated like her mum and dead like both of them, in the end. She was a doctor. She should have known better than this.

He knelt down and picked the bottle up. It wasn't wine. It was whisky. Had she actually just drank a whole bottle of whisky? He now dreaded the moment she would wake. He considered fleeing. With whisky in her system she became aggressive and furiously angry, even violent on occasion. It was the one type of alcohol that seriously did not agree with her. And she had a whole bottle of it in her.

"What's the point, Serena?" he asked her sleeping form in nothing more than a whisper. She wasn't peaceful; her face was tortured. "Hmm? What do you think all this will help you with?"

He stroked her cheek lightly. Her soft face was pained even in drunken sleep. How he loved her, even this state. Even after she had left him to fall asleep on the sofa and drank herself into oblivion, he couldn't stop himself. He had a feeling, though, that he would inevitably provide her with more pain and destruction. It was an unfortunate talent of his, hurting Serena. It was never intentional, but it always seemed to happen. He knew that, as Adrienne had pointed out on numerous occasions, he could be unbelievably stupid.

She wriggled slightly but didn't wake; Edward pulled the duvet up to her chin and kissed her head.

He went downstairs and picked up his phone from the coffee table, following his immediate instinct to call for her mother's help. It was only when the number rang out that it well and truly struck him that she was actually gone. That Serena was now an orphan. That the one person who knew how to handle the woman who lay passed out drunk upstairs was gone. That he had to learn the art of saving Serena Campbell, because the master was no longer here.

Edward dialled Eleanor's number with a deep sigh; Serena was in no fit state to deal with their daughter, so it fell on him. After two rings she picked up. "Hey, Dad," she said brightly. "How are you?"

"Ellie," he sighed. "Ellie, your granny's died," he forced out.

"What?!" she answered. He heard the cracked shock in her voice, and could just picture her expression of painful disbelief. "But I spoke to her the other day! She was fine!"

"She got ill quite quickly, and it escalated even faster," Edward said, trying to stick to clinical-mode so he didn't get too emotional with his daughter on the other end of the phone. He needed to man up, if not for Serena then for Eleanor. "She died in theatre under anaesthesia. She wouldn't have felt a thing," he assured her

He heard sniffling and accepted with a pang that Eleanor was in tears. "What about Mum? Is she OK?" Edward froze, unable to lie and unable to tell the truth. He couldn't tell what option was kinder. Lying would only postpone the inevitable discovery on Eleanor's part that her mother was not coping, but telling her the truth would only add another burden to the youngster's list. "Dad?"

"She's asleep just now," Edward allowed, effectively dodging the question while she was too shocked and not sharp enough to pull him up for it. "She's hurting, obviously, and she's tired herself out."

Ellie sighed. "Will she phone me when she wakes up?"

"I'll tell her to," he promised. "Do you want to talk things through or..."

"I just need to work it out myself, Dad," she answered. "Are...are you OK?" she asked him gently. "I mean, I know you and Granny were quite close before you and Mum split. She used to tell me how you were the only person ever allowed to help her make Sunday dinner," she laughed fondly. Edward chuckled at the truth in what his daughter was telling him; Serena and Andrew were always barred from the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon while Edward and Adrienne got dinner ready.

"I'm fine," he answered. He wasn't sure if he actually was fine, but he wasn't going to let Eleanor worry about him.

"I have a lecture in a minute, Dad," she said apologetically. "I'm going to have to go. I'll speak to you soon," she added.

"OK," he smiled slightly at the determination she had inherited from her mother. He feared that she had also inherited the reliance on alcohol, having heard horror stories from Serena about drugs, alcohol and bad behaviour. "I'll get your mum to phone you tonight."

"Sure. See you soon, Dad," she said. "Bye."

"Bye," he answered, hanging up the phone. He leaned back and put his feet on the table. He needed to go home, get his own space, but to leave Serena with nobody felt wrong. He couldn't do it; he had done before through selfish stupidity and regretted it ever since. If the empty bottle and the state of her earlier were anything to go by, she wasn't going to get through this without someone to help her, and he was the only one who knew that she needed someone who saw past the cold façade.

She was a woman made from cast iron: strong but brittle, and magnetic to him.

"Feet off the table, Edward," a slurred voice from his right ordered. He looked around to see Serena leaning against the wall looking thoroughly drunk still. "Don't look at me like that," she snapped, though the intent to threaten him off was diluted by the fact that she was still too drunk to make good on whatever she wanted to do to him.

"Like what?"

"Like you're disappointed in me," she snarled at him. He hated that drunken expression she used when turning the anger inwards wasn't working anymore. "You've got no right to disapprove of me. You're as bad as me and then some. We're awful parents. We never were very good with our own parents. We were always making each other miserable when we were married. So don't you_ dare _look at me like that!" she ranted at him. He saw the whisky taking effect on her mind, making her furious and aggressive. She tried to advance on him but tripped, steadying herself by grabbing the edge of the door.

Edward paused for a moment to level his temper before he eventually spoke. "Go back to bed, Serena. You're still drunk."

"I'm not," she denied.

"You are," he said. He stood up and turned her by the shoulders towards the stairs. "Come on. Bed. Sleep it off." She resisted but she didn't have the physical strength to push him off when he was sober and she wasn't. She stumbled halfway up and he had to grab her by the waist. He shook his head in resignation that this was what she was really like.

When they reached her bedroom, he watched her fall onto the bed with a laugh. "What's so funny?" he demanded darkly, rifling through her drawers to find her some pyjamas.

"I'm finally on my own," she laughed in a drunken slur. "My parents are gone, my daughter's away to uni, my ex-husband hates my guts and my colleagues are all terrified of me. Mission accomplished!" she cheered, punching the air triumphantly while she exuded agonised sarcasm.

He shook his head again and turned around. "Stand up," he ordered her. His patience was wearing thin, because he hated to see her broken and trying to patch herself with the one thing almost destined to destroy her. "Stand _up_," he told her again. He wasn't going to let her attempt to change her own clothes; the state she was in, she was going to fall over if she tried it herself.

She reluctantly obeyed, and he began to pull her shirt from her shoulders. It was only when he saw the mess of dried blood on her arm that he remembered she hadn't cleaned herself up after cutting herself. "Stay here," he quietly told her. He wandered into the bathroom and found a clean flannel, soaking it in antibacterial handwash and water before he returned. He started wiping the blood from her pale arm. "I really don't understand you sometimes," he admitted.

"You're crossing a line," she cautioned him.

"Your body is nothing I haven't seen before," he shrugged. "I just want to know you're safe and sound asleep."

"Why?" she asked, sounding confused. She clearly couldn't remember much about kissing him or admitting she needed him.

He remained silent, wanting to say so much to her but knowing that she wasn't aware enough to see how much he really cared for her. He pulled her top over her head and started to pull her arms into the purple satin pyjama shirt. She was unsteady as he began to pull her trousers down and her pyjamas on, and he had to keep one leg still while the other one was in the air. She wasn't just half-cut. She was actually full-blown drunk. How could he have allowed this to happen when he had predicted as much to himself?

He stood up straight and brushed her hair away from her face. "OK," he said gently. "You need to sleep."

"Sorry," she whispered to him. "I'm so awful to you to."

"Don't worry," he answered her softly. "You've got bigger issues than me to worry about," he reminded her of why she was in this state in the first place. She looked away from him but still allowed him to help her back into bed. He rubbed her arm lightly and turned away.

"Stay." The request made him turn back to his ex-wife. "Stay with me."

"Serena..." he hesitated.

Her eyes were glassy as she confessed to him, "I don't want to be on my own."  
Edward let out a sharp, humourless laugh. "You found that idea hilarious a few minutes ago," he pointed out. She was deadly serious; her little personal celebration had been an exercise in reminding herself how little she had left to love. She was not happy to be alone. He saw now that being truly alone frightened her half to death.

"Please."

Against his better judgement, he switched off the light and walked around to the other side of Serena's bed. He climbed in, laying with his back to her. He was there, as she had asked of him, but after what she had done earlier, he was being careful. It wasn't that he didn't want or love her, because he did, but he wanted her to know who she was and what she was doing. Right now she didn't know either of those things.

"You _are_ going to be alright," he told her through the dim light filtering through the curtains.

"How do you know that?" she asked him; he heard the fear and doubt in her soft voice as she pulled the covers up.

"Because you're Serena," he explained. His answer coaxed a laugh – well, a cynical, unladylike snort – from her. "Now go to sleep."

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts on it!  
Sarah x**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: This is not what I planned to write AT ALL. And my wrist is killing me because I yanked the exhaust off the manifold of a Transit van at a bad angle :/ anyway, thanks, as always, to everyone who has been reading and reviewing :)**

**Sarah x**

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Serena stepped in out of the snow, her long black coat speckled white as it grew colder and the snowflakes turned almost like hail. Edward's hand on her back and the presence of her daughter were almost enough to make her feel normal again. Almost. It was almost like old times, when she didn't hate Edward. When she didn't hate herself.

But she was coming to realise that she didn't really hate Edward. Most definitely she resented his stupidity, but she didn't hate _him_. She didn't have the capacity to hate him anymore. She had tried for the past week to keep her pain from him and Eleanor; they didn't need to see how fast she was sinking, how the quicksand was sucking her down into suffocation. She had already given up on trying to grapple her way out. She could only keep herself as calm as possible.

She went to the kitchen and pulled off her coat to reveal the plain black suit underneath. Her first instinct was to grab a glass and a bottle of wine; she didn't need to see or hear Edward to feel his disapproval rattle through her, the vibrations beating in her chest like she was standing next to a car with a completely broken exhaust.

"Mum," she heard Eleanor's voice call. "It's just over a week until Christmas." Ugh. Christmas. She'd done _nothing_ in preparation. "Can we put the tree up?

Serena didn't answer but she vaguely heard Edward saying, "I'll go and get the tree out of the loft in a minute, darling." Serena didn't want to even celebrate Christmas this year, but to deprive Eleanor of the event would be unfair.

"Thanks, Dad," Eleanor replied. "I'm going to get changed. This shirt's too tight on my shoulders," she sighed, and Serena heard her footsteps leave her with Edward.

In her frustration with her own mind, she slammed her hand flat against the counter top. "I haven't even got her a present. I've not bought food or anything like that."

"Don't worry," he answered her. The tone of his voice caught her attention. He was up to something.

"What are you..." she trailed away.

He smiled gently. "I told you not to worry. I'll take care of it." She opened her mouth to argue with him, but his finger fell onto her lips to silence her. "Let me do this for you, Serena. If not for you then for Ellie." His simple touch felt like it could melt away the ice pushing through her heart, even if only for this moment. "For Ellie. She deserves a good Christmas after all of this."

"Something I failed to provide her with?" she snapped, feeling inadequate as he pointed out that she had failed to deal with the immediate future. "Thanks for reminding me."

Edward smiled sadly. "Everyone is allowed to have a little breakdown now and again, you know," he informed her. "Nothing to be ashamed of."

But she wasn't ashamed. She was angry. Furious. But only with herself. She accepted now that her parents had lied to her to give her the best possible life. All this was her own fault; she was the one who had allowed the past to become the present and the future. She had failed to see the truth and the motives in time, and now her mother didn't know how sorry she was for flipping out on her and estranging her.

She turned her back on him and poured two glasses of wine. She drank the first and gave the second to Edward. He refused so she shrugged and drank his too, thinking nothing of it as she filled another. "Serena!" Edward scolded her. "You've barely been sober all week. Stop it!"

"I'm not a child."

"Then stop acting like one," he ordered her. "Please, Serena. I'm trying here. I'm really trying," he told her; she heard the courage and the caution in his voice. His hand was resting against the side of her neck, and the warmth was spreading across her skin, never really going any deeper. "I wish I could save you," he confessed.

Serena allowed her eyes to meet Edward's, and they immediately locked with a connection that, in that moment, felt unbreakable. "I..." she attempted to speak. "Why are you doing this? Why are you watching over me?" she demanded. She had a feeling she had asked him this recently, but she couldn't remember the answer. It was all just a never ending blur.

"Like I've told you before, I love you," he murmured, barely audible over their own breathing. Serena tried to ignore that comment, finding a million selfish motives for him to say it. Of course, the main reason was probably stupidity. If there was one thing she knew about Edward, it was this: if there was a stupid way to do something, he would inevitably find it.

But as her hand drifted up to his wrist to pull his hand down away from her neck, she accepted that maybe he was telling her the truth. Maybe he did still love her. He was just stupid enough to tell her so on the day of her mother's funeral. "Why do you always have to make things so complicated, Edward?" she whispered hopelessly. "From the moment you set foot into Holby, you've made me..." she searched for the right word but she couldn't find it. "And now that all this has happened, I don't even know how I should feel, never mind how I actually feel. So, please, don't complicate it."

"Alright," he allowed, and her heart stopped when he kissed her head. He had done it before, but her heart was broken already; his touch was only killing what was already broken. "Are you OK? You know, after the funeral?"

"Yeah," she lied, only because she didn't _really_ know what the truth was. "Just a formality, really, isn't it?" She didn't like that look of unadulterated concern in Edward's eyes. He knew she was lying, and she was well aware that they were way beyond the stage of her being able to pull the wool over his eyes.

She turned her back on him, unable to bear the intensity of his gaze any longer. She wanted rid of him but she wanted him here with her. She wanted his support, but not _him_. Not the stupidity or the cheek and impudence or the intensity of their relationship – whatever that was.

She breathed out slowly and composed herself. "I'm going to see if Ellie's OK," she told him. She brushed past him, feeling the heat of his body and the old attraction that was presenting itself at the most inconvenient and dangerous of times. She half ran up the stairs; she wanted away from her ex-husband and to be with her daughter.

She was trying to be strong but everything she knew and had once loved was crumbling inside of her, the pillar that once stood tall inside her now a pile of broken stones. Did she now have to scale that pile to become who she once was?

She knocked on Eleanor's bedroom door but received no reply; it was her prerogative as a mother to open the door anyway, where she found her daughter curled up in her bed with the teddy bear Adrienne had given her for her fourth birthday. Serena sighed and walked over to the other side of the bed, staring at the teenager's back. "Budge over," she said quietly. She climbed under the duvet when Eleanor wriggled her body forward. "You OK, darling?" she asked as she wrapped her arms around the girl's thin frame.

"Yeah," huffed Eleanor. "I just miss her."

"I know. Me too." Serena squeezed her tightly and kissed her head. "But, you know, she's still your Granny. Even though she's not here, she's still watching you," she spilled out the old cliché, as much as she hated the concept of such an overused theory.

"You don't really believe that, do you?" Eleanor quizzed her with a distrustful snort.

"Well, I don't know what I believe," Serena admitted carefully. "But you have to decide for yourself what you believe. And if you believe that Granny is watching you right now, what do you think she's saying?"

There was a loud groan from outside the door and Serena rolled her eyes as she heard Edward grumbling his way up into the loft. "She would be saying, 'Ellie, sweetheart, dry your eyes, get yourself out of bed and get your silly dad out of the attic before he breaks his neck.' That's what she'd be saying," Eleanor asserted. "So that's what I'm going to do. I've done as Granny told me my whole life. I'm not going to stop now."

Serena breathed out slowly, relieved that her daughter was stronger and more optimistic than she herself was. Footsteps overhead alerted them to Edward scrambling about in the loft above them. "What was Grandad like?" Eleanor asked quietly. "I never knew Dad's parents, and I don't remember Grandad, and now Granny's gone."

Serena didn't think. She just spouted out the line she had always held about Andrew. "He was a lovely man. He loved you to bits. Put everyone else before himself," she lied. "Frequently called your Dad a wimp because he hates the snow and can't handle being snowed in," she recalled fondly the occasion they were stuck in Scotland for a week when the snow gates were closed in 1995. Edward had been climbing the walls. "You would have liked him."

Eleanor giggled slightly. "Sounds fun." Serena felt her pat her leg lightly, reversing the mother-daughter roles only for a moment. "Come on. Let's go and rescue Dad."

They got up and opened the door, finding the ladder to the attic pulled down in front of them. "Somebody catch!" Edward's call came. A moment later a box of decorations dropped from the hole in the ceiling. Serena haphazardly caught it and handed it to Eleanor, waiting for the tree to follow.

After half a minute, Edward was trying to get a footing on the ladder with the artificial tree tucked between his arm and his chest. She moved aside to give him room to get off safely.

A moment later, Serena felt his weight on against her body. He had lost his balance and fell sideways off the ladder and pressed Serena into the wall. She was actually aware of Eleanor watching and looked around to see the teenager repressing a smirk at the sight of her divorced parents unwillingly pressed against each other. Little did she know how many times Serena had kissed Edward in the past month.

"Edward," she moaned. "Get off." He smirked and stepped back; if she didn't know better, she would have said he had done that in an attempt to make his daughter laugh. If that was the case, it had worked because Eleanor was chuckling to herself as she sauntered down the stairs. "_Never_ do that again," she warned him in a low tone.

To her annoyance, he found it hilarious, grinning as he walked away. Serena shook her head to herself, wondering exactly when her relationship with Edward became so damn complex. She needed him. She couldn't deny that. She did love him; she could try and deny that all she wanted but it didn't change that the same bond they shared twenty years ago remained to this day.

She sat down and watched Edward and Eleanor, pretend to strangle each other with tinsel, cheering each other up to no end. That was one thing she was grateful for – Edward was the best person on the planet to assist with Eleanor. He kept her spirits up with a seemingly effortlessness that Serena often was bitterly jealous of. She folded her arms and just watched them smiling, feeling alienated as she realised she couldn't join them. She could help them, definitely, but she would not enjoy it like she should.

After half an hour, Serena was thinking about getting another glass of wine until Edward handed Eleanor the angel. Eleanor turned and held it out to her mother. "No, darling, you do it. That's always been your job," Serena said firmly. Eleanor smiled and let her dad help her onto the arm of the sofa so she could reach.

As they smiled and looked ahead, Serena sat there without any real expression or feeling, staring at the floor – at the spot she felt frozen to.

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**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: I'm not sure I like what I've written here. Maybe I'm just too tired :P thanks again to everyone who has been reading and reviewing!**

**Sarah x**

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Edward fell into his bed that night, too tired to sleep and too uptight to do anything remotely constructive. So he lay in bed, playing in his mind the tape of his failures, Serena's troubles and Eleanor's strength.

He didn't know how it had all come to this. How he was suddenly lying here, in the same town as his ex-wife, having just buried his ex-mother-in-law and now wondering what to do. He had promised to sort out Christmas for Serena and Eleanor, and he fully intended to make good on that promise. But he was clueless. He was walking a tightrope with Serena, trying to hold her tight while she pushed him away so she could fall alone.

He missed Adrienne more than he could have ever predicted; though they had barely spoken for years and years until recently, she had been alive and kicking. She had been there, even if he hadn't always known exactly where. The idea that the woman was no longer able to tell him he was an idiot was something he didn't want to think about, but unlike Serena he would not run from it. He knew running didn't help anything.

Why had he allowed Serena to sink so far? He didn't want to have to rescue her. He should have held her tighter when he saw her slipping. He should have loved her better all those years ago. He should never have given her reason to divorce him. The love he still felt for the woman was like nothing he had felt for anyone else; he only remarried because he accepted that the chances of Serena taking him back were astronomical. It had been an attempt at normality.

He was, however, glad to see that his daughter was stronger than he had ever given her any credit for; she was dealing with Adrienne's death better than he was, and definitely better than her mother was. She was smiling, and it was not a façade; he was not a brilliant father, but he did know when his daughter was lying to him. She was not lying to him, and she wasn't lying to herself either. She was just trying to keep going because, unlike Serena, she saw there was a life beyond the pain.

He jumped slightly when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at the caller ID – Eleanor. What was she calling at this time of the night for? "Hey, Ellie," Edward smiled. "Miss me already?"

"Dad, it's Mum. She's fallen down the stairs," his daughter rushed out, her voice a whisper as he realised Serena didn't know she was calling him. "She won't let me call an ambulance or you or Ric..." she trailed away. He heard her starting to panic.

"Is she hurt?" Edward sighed. He should have known something like this was going to happen tonight.

"She says she's fine but I'm not sure she knows the difference," she confessed. "She's a _little_ bit drunk." Edward groaned and got out of bed, grabbing his trousers and shirt, resigned to the fact he had been complacent to think Serena was able to look after herself on a day like today.

Edward sighed. "I'm coming, I'm coming."

"Thanks, Dad," she answered, and he was unnerved to hear that Eleanor was relieved to have her father going to her aid. He hung up and grabbed his keys. Why did he keep running to Serena? What was pulling him to her all the time? He couldn't tell if it was love or a need to save her. He couldn't tell if it was a need to have her or a need to just not lose her.

When he knocked on Serena's front door, Eleanor answered with a frosty expression and an overnight bag. "Deal with her, Dad," she begged him. "I'm staying the night with Gabby. I can't put up with the madness tonight. Sorry."

Edward ruffled her hair. "Don't be. Just go and I'll sober her up, OK?" Eleanor nodded. "What exactly happened?"

Eleanor huffed slightly. "I was in my room on my laptop and Mum was down here. I heard her trying to get up the stairs but when I went to help her, she fell down."

"Was she unconscious at all?" he asked.

"Nah. She just came through here and sat down. Apart from telling me not to get anyone, she's barely said a word." Edward rubbed the back of his neck nervously; he didn't much fancy dealing with a hurt, drunk and very probably aggressive Serena tonight. He wasn't sure he had the strength to hold her up.

"OK. You go to Gabby's in case she kicks off," he ordered his teenage daughter. With a sigh, he met her eyes and pulled her into a tight cuddle; it had been a good long while since he was a real dad to Eleanor. He had been on the periphery of her life, never anywhere near the centre. It had taken this long for him to inch slowly towards that place he should have been to begin with. He kissed her hair and let her leave.

He took a breath and proceeded to the living room, seeing Serena struggling with a TubiGrip and pair of scissors. Silently he took both from her and sat beside her on the sofa. She wanted to fight him – that much was obvious – but she was either too exhausted or too drunk to put him back in his corner. He felt her wrist carefully; it was swollen but there was also no way it was broken. She didn't seem to have any head injuries, or any other injuries for that matter. "You've been bloody lucky," Edward informed her.

She laughed, and it unnerved him. It wasn't a normal laugh; it was cold and shrill, filled with bitter pain and resentment. He folded the stretchy cloth over itself and cut a slit for her thumb before pulling it gently over her hand.

Did he have the strength to help her? Did he have the self-restraint to refuse her desperate advances? Because she didn't really want him. She didn't love him. She needed him. There was a massive difference there. "Now, Serena," he said to her as he pulled her shirt sleeve back down. "Listen to me. You can't keep doing this. You can't just get drunk and forget. You know life doesn't work that way."

She wasn't listening. Her eyes were glazed over and she was too upset and inebriated to really comprehend him.

"You're going to end up killing yourself," he warned her, not bothering to sound level and kind. "OK? You keep going like this and you're going to end up leaving this house in a body bag. And I can't have that, Serena," he explained to her. "Eleanor needs her mother. If that's not a good enough reason to buck up your ideas, I don't know what is."

She looked up from the floor. Her eyes were darker than usual, a depth of despair, and shatteredness displaying itself upon her face with no disguise as alcohol wiped away all her camouflages.

He was lost. He didn't know how to save her anymore. She was falling apart before his eyes; every time he saw her she was more damaged. More scarred. More frightened. More fractured. Her heart and mind were breaking, and he could watch it happening if he stepped back. But he could not step back. He could not try and distance himself from his ex-wife, because he knew she could not stand alone right now. At the moment, she was dependent on him and a bottle – he would rather he was all she depended on. He hated to see her poison herself.

He stroked her hair lightly; his head and his heart were having a battle to themselves. His head told him to leave her to stand on her own, because reliance was not a trait best instilled in a woman like Serena Campbell, but his heart couldn't allow that. His heart needed to make sure she was alright, and help her if she wasn't. Because, although he was fairly certain she did not love him, he did love her.

"Right," he ordered her firmly. "Bed."

She wasn't speaking. She was capable of it, because she had tried to stop Eleanor from calling him, but she just wasn't doing it. He didn't even know how to treat her anymore – he didn't see an improvement in her with him trying to be kind, but he knew her well enough to know that if he was too harsh he would only hurt her even more. Some people had to be hurt to be helped, but Serena would only start spiralling if she thought he didn't care.

He just wanted to shake sense into her but he didn't want to break her.

She was leaning her head against his shoulder, and he briefly wondered exactly how much she had been drinking. That was irrelevant, really, because what mattered was her developing reliance on alcohol.

"Come with me," she whispered.

"I'll put you in bed and then I'm going home," he said firmly. "Come on," he added, taking her by the elbow and steering her to the stairs; they took them steps one at a time. He didn't want her falling again. She was unsteady so he wrapped an arm around her waist as he helped her up the stairs. When they got to her room, he asked her, "Do you need a hand to get changed?" She didn't answer but her expression was sheepish.

He found her a pair of green pyjamas and laid them on the bed. She was struggling to undo her first button on her shirt; he gently pulled her hands down and started to unbutton her shirt. He froze as her fingers touched his chest. "I know what I'm doing, Edward," she told him. It was true – she knew what had happened to her. She knew where she was. She knew who he was. She knew what she was doing.

Her lips brushed across his gently. It was nothing like her previous advances. She wasn't being rough and careless, seeking only distraction. He felt her hands on his cheek, softly pulling him down. "Serena," he breathed. "This is a bad idea. You'll just regret it in the morning."

"Shut up," she murmured. Tonight it was vodka he tasted on her breath, toxic and coarse as she was kissing him, deepening it with every time their lips met. He could feel her fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, and failing to undo it as he took hers off with comparative ease. She gave up and yanked it over his head.

He had his reservations about his actions; it felt like he was hurting her, but she insisted he wasn't.

He surrendered and let her clumsily undress him until they fell onto her bed together, completely in tune with one another. It was like they had never been separated, which only served as a stark reminder that separated was exactly what they were.

She was his greatest weakness and always had been. He was quickly realising that as he pinned her down, kissing her throat and collar bone, hearing her soft breathing underneath him. "Edward?" she whimpered.

"Hmm?" he asked, pinning her down to the bed. Her silence frightened him, and he stopped what he was doing to look into her eyes. All he saw was pain. There was no elation or relief in them. She was just in pain. She was in pain, and he was her morphine.

"Nothing," she said quietly. "Nothing. Just...just..." she faltered. She was on the edge of tears as she failed to convey to him what she was feeling underneath all the obvious desperation. He had no idea what she was looking for in him. All he knew was that he couldn't desert her again, when she clearly needed _something_ from him. "Just..."

He silenced her with a soft yet passionate kiss. "It's OK. I know," he lied.

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**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think of it!  
Sarah x**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: I'm not sure about this chapter - it's a bit...full on? If that's the right way to describe it? But I hope it works. It's also where the lyrics on the cover image start to come into play. Thanks as always to everyone who has read and reviewed :)**

**Sarah x**

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Christmas Eve. One day until Serena had to face Christmas with no preparation, no idea what was happening and – most painfully – it was her first Christmas without her mother. The idea of it terrified. She was so used to her presence on the day that to even think of her absence made it feel completely surreal. And as she sat down at her desk she realised she really had taken her mum for granted.

She opened her drawer and poured whisky in a mug, needing the relief it was sure to provide. She was left with nothing but regrets. Edward had been right; she deeply regretted their night together, though not for the reasons she suspected he believed. She regretted it because it reminded her how deep their bond had always gone. It had reminded her just how much she loved the man behind the mistakes.

She had to be punished for that weakness; like most of her misdemeanours, that was one she could not forgive. She had no right to blame Edward, either, because she had practically begged him for some comfort. He had only been doing what she had asked of him. They had not spoken of that night since she had pulled him close the next morning, hating herself for using him. They pretended like it never happened, and Serena was determined that it would remain an isolated incident.

She stood up and looked out the window at the half-foot blanket of snow covering the car park. Edward hated this weather. Though not as extreme as what they once faced in the Highlands, she knew he was not a great fan of the cold, ice and snow. Never had been. Never would be. Maybe if it snowed again tonight he wouldn't want to come around for Christmas Day...she couldn't decide if she wanted him there or not. She had a feeling he was trying to keep an eye on her, and she was feeling the overwhelming and immature urge to rebel against his protection.

As she poured a second mug of whisky, she could almost hear her mother telling her not to be so stupid, not to push Edward away. Not to pick the fight she so desperately needed. If she picked a fight then she would be punished.

Carefully she set her mug down on the window sill and took a breath, resolving to offend the next person who spoke to her. She needed reminded that she was not the only one who hated her; she wanted to be told the awful person she was. She longed for someone to hurt her, because she had too many eyes on her to do it herself.

She stepped out onto Keller, looking around to see that Michael was just coming in for night shift – Christmas Eve night shift was always...interesting – and Jac and Jonny speaking to him, dressed for going outside. Jac was very heavily pregnant. She looked fit to burst. And was probably hormonal and more than willing to rip Serena apart. She set her mind to provoking the younger woman, and she knew it would not take much after what Jac had confessed while trying to make Serena see sense.

Serena leaned against the wall. The small logical part of her that remained reminded her she was on a path to self-destruction. She was losing the plot. She knew it. But she didn't care. She wanted someone to slap her. Hurt her. Injure her. Kill her, even. To rid the world of the disgusting, lying, weak, cheating, vicious creature she was.

She waited, staring at the floor as she demanded of herself why she was doing this. Why she wasn't at home with her daughter. Why she was pushing Edward out when he had done the one thing she had asked of him – he loved her. That was all she had asked of him.

It was with a sick feeling in her stomach that it occurred to her that this time last year she had been telling Michael to stop drinking and go home, and now she was the one with alcohol in her blood and fear of her own home in her heart.

"Merry Christmas, Serena," she heard Jac say. Serena's head snapped up to see the redhead's rare genuine smile glowing, and she for once seemed contented, despite the lack of a real family around her. She had the strength to move on and at least try and find happiness. She was determined where Serena was weak.

She said the one thing that was bound to hurt her. "No Christmas card from Mummy?" she sneered. Taken aback, Jac's face betraying the pain, confusion and slight horror at her viciousness. But still Serena continued. "This must be the first Christmas you haven't spent alone in a long time. Jonny's only putting up with you because you're carrying his child. Your own mother gave up on you, didn't she?"

"OK, that's enough, Ms. Campbell," Jonny intervened. "I don't know what you're think-"

"That's right, Maconie, you don't."

"You need to go and calm down," he asserted firmly. She stood up straight. "Don't you square up to me," he warned her. "If it comes to it, I'll take disciplinary action over letting you hurt Jac or the baby any day."

"Jonny," Jac said quietly, her hand around his wrist. "Let me deal with her." Jac stepped forward. An expression of dead calm crawled across her pale face. A moment later, Serena felt with a sense of satisfaction the sting of Jac's hand across her face. "That was what you were after, wasn't it?" Jac demanded. Serena felt the sharp knife twist within her as she realised that the woman had known exactly what she was doing. The vulnerability in her walls expanded as she realised her pain was not invisible. "I suggest you get up to Psych before you do some real damage."

That one really did sting, and Serena's immediate reaction was to slap Jac hard across the face, forgetting that she was pregnant and was not to be wound up. Their eyes were locked together for only a moment before Jac's temper snapped and she advanced forward, trying to get past Jonny. "Jac," he said. She shoved him away and pushed Serena back into the wall.

"Hey!" Michael's shout echoed across the ward. "What in the hell is going on?!"

"I've got _no_ idea," Jonny muttered to him as Serena took a step forward and pushed Jac back into Jonny's arms. "She's just...I don't know."

Serena felt Michael's strong hands on her arms, restraining her from taking the dispute into real violence. She tried to shrug him off with no success. "Come on, Jac," Jonny ordered the mother of his child, steering her away from the madness that had become Serena Campbell.

"She's pregnant, Serena!" Michael berated her. He took her by the shoulders and threw her in her office; he obviously knew she would not willing cooperate if he ordered her in there. Slamming the door behind him, he asked her, "What is wrong with you? Is this you coming off the rails or something?"

Serena remained silent. What was she meant to say? That she was fine but she hated herself and wished someone would just kill her because she didn't have it in her to do it herself? "I'm fine," she lied.

Michael sighed. "I'm calling Edward."

"You'll do no such thing!" she snapped. "He stays out of this from now on. He's already given more than I deserve!"

"What does _that_ mean?!" Michael shouted in frustration. Serena looked away, unable to say anything. She had made such an awful mess of everything she held so dear, and now she was losing the one thing she cherished above all else: her mind. "Serena?" Michael persisted, though his voice was gentler and he sounded extremely worried.

"I slept with Edward," she choked out. It wasn't something she was proud of. Not because she didn't still love Edward, but because of the circumstances surrounding the instance. "I used him."

Michael didn't look disgusted, shocked or even remotely surprised. Had they really all expected her to be so weak? Had they expected her to be left unable to stand on her own two feet?

"You didn't hold a gun to his head, did you?" Michael reasoned. "He loves you. I don't think he'll be complaining about going to bed with you."

"Not the point, Michael!" She turned around and picked up her coat. "I'm going home."

"I'll drive you," he immediately offered. "You've been drinking," he added with a nod towards the mug on the window sill. It was letting off a smell of caustic booze around the office that she only just noticed.

She shook her head. "I'll call a cab."

Unwillingly Michael nodded. "Suit yourself." He approached her slowly and she felt him kiss her cheek and pull her into a hug. "Try and have a good Christmas, Rena."

She closed her eyes for a moment and tried not to cry; every time someone showed her understanding or love or compassion, it reduced her almost to tears. "You too," she whispered in his ear. She pressed a kiss onto his temple in thanks for his efforts to save her and watched him smile and leave.

Serena looked around her office, her gaze falling onto the bottle of amber liquid. She grabbed it and put it in her handbag, intending to sit in her car and forget that she was a stupid, merciless bitch.

She got in the lift and pressed the button for the ground floor; she had had enough. She hated who she was. She hated that everything she touched fell apart.

When she stepped outside, the cold burned against the already stinging skin of her face, making her see that frozen darkness was all she had left. Instead of heading to her car she wandered across the car park and sat at the bench. With numb hands she opened the bottle from her bag and took a swig, the liquid searing as it poured down her throat. She only realised that she had barely eaten today as her stomach rumbled in protest, but she didn't care. Hunger served as good punishment.

She felt the substance relaxing her body and clouding her mind as she abused it. Her judgement was shot. Her morals were non-existent. Her heart was broken.

Unable to sit still, she stood up and took the bottle and her bag with her, wandering around. She let the cold air hurt her skin, glad for the physical pain that left no scars. She felt her forearm and, though she couldn't feel it through her coat, she could picture the scar she had left there perfectly. She had studied it so many times, allowing it to serve as a reminder that she was weak.

She felt Michael's arms around her again, hugging her tight. She felt Eleanor in her arms, her beautiful, precious daughter in pain while she tried to survive, never mind live. She felt Jac's hand across her face, giving her what she wanted and ripping apart her heart at the same time. She felt Edward's kiss, his hands wandering over her body as he gently gave her what only he could. It all flooded back to her too fast, drowning her as she felt her chest racked with sobs.

She felt her mother's soft touch, protecting her from all that could possibly hurt her, which had always included her own dad. She remembered the photo from when she herself was an infant in her drunken father's arms, and the news that Andrew had not been allowed to hold her while he was standing.

She leaned against the nearest tree, seeing that the place was deserted, and fell to her knees, sinking into the snow. It soaked through her trousers until she couldn't feel her own skin, and she swallowed from the bottle. She wanted to pass out and never wake up.

The numbness soon overcame her like the alcohol and fear that ran through her veins. Pain had become her heart, the rhythm of her bloodstream. She sat there and just cried and drained the bottle of whisky. She had left herself incapable of standing up.

She didn't even know what she was thinking as the alcohol drowned her in darkness.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think of it!  
Sarah x**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: I'm not sure I like this, but oh well. I don't much like anything I write, but you all seem to, which is the main thing. Thanks again to everyone who is reading and reviewing!**

**Sarah x**

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It was half past one before Michael eventually took a break from Keller; he was already wanting his bed and his kids, to spend tonight like so many Christmas Eves before. He put on his coat and wandered outside so the cold air could wake him up and the coffee could kick his brain into gear. He almost wished he had asked Serena to take the shift, but he had known better. She had deliberately bated Jac until she got a slap – he had seen it in her face when he threw her in the office.

He wiped the snow off the bench and sat down, feeling tired enough already to sleep for a year. He didn't know how to deal with Serena; she was his superior and could fire his ass whenever she felt like it, but she was somewhat special to him. She represented everything he wasn't – she was singleminded, determined, compassionate and logical, where he could never separate one issue from the other without getting it wrong. She had stopped him being an idiot on numerous occasions, and he wasn't sure she realised that.

He so wanted to call Edward but knew it would be going against Serena's wishes and breaking her confidence. She was his friend. It was as simple as that. But perhaps he had to hurt her to help her, because Edward was what she needed, even if she didn't want him.

He pulled out his phone and opened Edward's number, toying with the idea of telling him just how far his ex-wife had stumbled. Fighting with his conscience, he stood up and started pacing around aimlessly, trampling uneven ground off the path to keep his mind alert. Serena would definitely not thank him, but he hated the idea of her sitting at home in her black hole of misery. He had watched her quietly, smelling drink off her in the mornings and seeing her every evening with a glass in her hand, sitting in her office alone. On top of her pain over her mother's death, he was almost certain she was developing a drinking problem.

He was about to press the call button when an abnormal object in the corner of his vision caught his attention. He turned around and felt his heart jump into his mouth. "Serena!" he shouted in shock. He ran to her, kneeling down to feel her weak pulse and her frozen skin. How long had she been here?

Sure that she had no other injuries, he scooped her up in his arms and heard the bottle drop from her hand. He jogged as far as he could before he needed to catch his breath, thumping the button in impatient panic. He took her to the first and closest place he could think of: AAU. "Hey!" he yelled across the ward. "Tressler! Gimme a hand!"

"Oh, my God!" the young doctor replied incredulously. "Is that Ms. Campbell?!"

"Just get her to a bed," Michael snapped. Her lips and fingers had a blue tinge as Mary-Claire took her temperature.

"Twenty-seven point four," she stated to Harry. Michael threw off his coat and started to watch as Mary-Claire started to draw blood without being asked. He knew what she and Harry were doing – they were trying to block out the fact that it was Serena lying there and were trying to work on auto-pilot. "I'm gonna get these up to the lab and get her out of these clothes."

"OK," Harry sighed. "Has she been drinking?"

"She had an empty bottle of whisky," Michael replied.

"And here was me thinking you were intelligent, Ms. Campbell," Harry said under her breath. "She going to need to get to Darwin. Who's the best person to call?" he asked Michael desperately; he only vaguely heard the young man, transfixed by Serena's deathly pale, limp body. "Mr. Spence?!"

"Uh, Elliot, or Naylor," he answered. "Naylor," he said assertively, knowing Jac would not let Serena die despite their row. "I'll call her."

He turned around and dialled Jac's number, greeted after two rings with an impatient grumble - "What do want at this time of the morning, Michael?!"

"We need you here, Jac," he answered her. "It's Serena. She needs your help," he explained. "I found her outside lying in the snow. She's got a temperature of under twenty-eight. She needs you."

"Is this some kind of sick joke, Michael?" she demanded, though he heard her getting out of bed. "'Cause Serena Campbell isn't that bloody stupid!" she shouted down the phone at him.

"Hey!" Michael yelled back; he felt the tension through the phone reception, feeling Jac's anxiety. "It ain't my fault! I just found her!" He ran his hand over his face in fear, anger and frustration. "Are you coming or not?" he demanded of her.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming."

"Thanks," he grudgingly said.

He hung up and let her get herself in gear, stalking back through to see how it was going; he could barely believe that the woman lying lifeless before him had been picking fights a mere matter of hours ago. He sat down next to her and brushed her wet hair away from her face, taking in the cold, pale beauty of a lost woman.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear, low enough that the nurse didn't hear, "You're stronger than this, Serena Campbell. Wake up so I can kick your ass for putting me through this." He picked up her hand in his. "I'm gonna phone Edward. He'll be here when you wake up," he said carefully, determined to say 'when' rather than 'if.' "And Eleanor. I'm going to get Eleanor in here, OK?" He pressed a kiss onto her frozen temple, just as she had done to him earlier.

The on-call consultant rushed past him to tend to Serena, but it did not comfort him. He was sure the guy was a perfectly good doctor, but he wanted Jac. He trusted Jac's clinical judgement above anyone else's. And, though the woman had argued, Michael trusted Jac's emotional detachment above all others.

He found Edward's number again and took a deep breath before dialling, listening to it ring until it almost rang out. "Hello," Edward answered sleepily. "Michael, it's the back of one on Christmas morning. What do you want?"

"Serena's ill, Edward," Michael explained gently.

"Oh, Christ. How much has she had to drink?" he sighed, and he sounded very much resigned to the obvious – that alcohol had played a huge part in this catastrophe.

"I don't know. She had an empty bottle of Scotch in her hand when I found her," Michael replied.

"Found her?" Serena's ex-husband repeated.

"Yeah, she was in the snow. God only knows how long she was there. Anyway. She's hypothermic, Edward," he said; he felt the dreaded lump forming in his throat.

"You don't think she's going to make it, do you?" Edward guessed gently. "Come on, Michael. Tell me straight."

Michael slumped himself into a computer chair behind the nurses' station. "She's not looking great. Temperature is twenty-seven point four. If I were you, I'd get over here, and take Eleanor...just in case," he reluctantly accepted that Serena had possibly signed her own death warrant through pain, recklessness and addiction. The woman he could see lying unconscious in a hospital bed, her clothes being changed by a nurse, was not one he knew.

"OK. I'm on my way. I'll grab Ellie on the way over."

Edward hung up on him before he could speak again; he had wanted to reiterate just what kind of state Serena was in. He didn't want them getting a nasty shock – no more than entirely necessary, anyway. But none of this was necessary. Serena _was_ stronger than to let herself die. Of that, Michael was more than sure. She was hard as nails, bitchy, arrogant, ruthless Serena Campbell. She wasn't hurt. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't broken.

But looking across the ward at her, it was plain to see that she was broken. She was breaking at the cracks, and those who loved her couldn't get near her for the wall she barricaded herself into her own private hell with.

He stood up, noticing only now that his trainers were squelching with melted snow. He sat down next to Serena, his hand falling onto her foil blanket-covered arm. If it weren't for the machines surrounding her, he would have thought she was dead. If she woke up, she would very possibly have brain damage. That would spell the end of her career and, depending on the severity, the end of life as she knew it. If there was one thing he would not be able to bear to see, it would be for Serena Campbell to become completely reliant on something or someone else. She had had her mind, if not her heart, and he knew her mind was what she cherished most about herself.

Lost in thought, he jumped at the sound of Jac Naylor's shouted orders and the thump of her handbag being carelessly discarded on the floor. "Theatre one. Now. Come _on_!" she yelled at her staff, clapping her hands sarcastically. "I've seen sloths move faster!" She strode into the room, seemingly undeterred by her massive bump, and started checking everything over for her own knowledge. "You do _not_ get to slap me and bail on me in the same night, Serena," she muttered. She turned on Michael. "I'm going to try cardio-pulmonary bypass, warm her blood up a bit."

"Think it'll work?"

"Should do," Jac nodded. She must have seen the worry in his face and, softened by pregnancy, she said, "Come on. Scrub in and watch. Keller can live without you for a little while."

Gratefully he followed the redhead who, even many months pregnant, was moving faster and with infinitely more determination than he had ever possessed.

Before Michael even knew what was happening, he was watching Jac's steady hand making the first incision. He felt physically sick that he was watching Serena being operated on; she, along with Jac, was the symbol of strength in this place, and yet she looked so fragile, still white and tinged blue. "She's mad," Jac sighed. "She's utterly bloody mad."

For the first time, Michael acknowledged Serena's instability aloud. "I know."

"What was she even doing out there?" Jac demanded, but Michael knew it wasn't of anyone in particular. "It's got to be twelve below out there. I thought she was intelligent."

"She was drunk. She's barely been sober in a month," he replied reluctantly. He was soon fixated on Serena's weakly beating heart.

Michael had stopped watching properly, dazed by the surreal situation and the danger facing the woman lying on the table. She was an inch from death and he doubted she would even have cared. The look in her eyes tonight had disturbed him. She had been desperately sad and hurt, and she had been stumbling as her attempts at normality failed.

When he stepped out of theatre, it was almost straight into Edward and Eleanor. Edward was pacing the corridor with a worried expression of fear and impatient, and Eleanor just looked terrified out of her wits by the idea that her mother had almost frozen to death. "OK. Jac's put her on temporary cardio-pulmonary bypass to warm her up," he explained. "But we won't know how much damage has been done until she wakes up."

"You mean _if_ she wakes up!" Eleanor argued. "Has she had her head tested?!"

"Not yet," Michael allowed. "First priority was to bring her core temperature up. Bloods and brain scan are next on the list."

Michael felt Jac's presence behind him and her comforting hand on his shoulder as Edward pulled Eleanor into his side. "Please, Eleanor," Jac said strictly, and yet with compassion rarely heard in her voice. "Try and keep calm. We can't possibly know what injuries your mum has suffered until she wakes up. For all we know, she could be OK," she continued optimistically.

Edward nodded. "Thanks. Can we..."

"Yeah, of course. She'll be in HDU," Jac said. As the pair walked away, Michael shared a dark look with Jac, and realised he was not alone. He was not the only one who thought they may have lost Serena Campbell.

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**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to drop me a review and tell me your opinions!  
Sarah x**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: I see you're all trying to stop me killing Serena. Would I do such a thing?! I love how none of you trust me :P thanks as always to everyone who has read and reviewed so far :)**

**Sarah x**

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Edward sat down carefully at Serena's bedside, gazing over her frozen, broken body. This was not the woman he had married. It wasn't even the woman who divorced him. She was someone unknown to him, but still loved greatly. She was cold and almost dead, but she had been that way for weeks. Up until now she was clawing to the surface, trying to find the sun with his guidance, but she had given up. He had to make her see. He had to make her _fight_.

Her skin was still cold, and he could guess that her core temperature was still a long way below what it needed to be. "I want you to fight," he ordered her. "OK? I want you to stop this, because you're not a weak person, Serena. And even when you _are_ weak, I'll be strong. When you let go, I'll hold on. I'll hold on tighter than I have done," he vowed to her. He was only aware that he was actually crying when the last word caught in his throat. "When you're lost, scared to death and you feel like you can't take another step, I'll hold onto you."

She remained deadly still, and the medic in him knew that she wasn't going to wake any time soon. But he couldn't bear to leave her. He picked up her hand and pressed his lips against her palm, the skin still cold against his mouth. He was stunned and shocked at the turn she had taken, and the result – Serena Campbell lying in a hospital bed as her friends did all the could to warm her up and keep her alive.

"I just need you to wake up," he begged her quietly. "I need you to open your eyes for me and tell me you're still Serena, because I'm not even sure who you are anymore. All I know is that it doesn't matter who you become. I love you. I always will."

He heard Eleanor approach and smelled coffee, much needed and much appreciated. She pulled a chair up until it was touching his and leaned into his side. Instinctively he put his arm around her and kissed her head. "Are you sure she's not dead?" Ellie whispered. "She's so white and..." she reached out to touch her mother's hand, "cold."

Edward squeezed his arm around his daughter's shoulders and took a sip of coffee. It burnt his mouth but he didn't particularly care very much. "She's not dead. She's critically ill, but she's not dead," Edward said frankly. He saw no point in sugarcoating it for her. That was the truth. And if he had learned anything from this mess, it was that if made clear from the beginning, the truth was always the best defence he had.

"She's not going to be the same," Eleanor moaned into his shoulder. "She won't be Mum anymore, will she?"

Her slim body was tense from the fear that everything was going to change; she didn't seem to realise that, either way, things were going to change anyway. If Serena recovered, he could not allow her to continue her collision course with her heartache. He could picture it like a wall in front of her, and she was going to just keep slamming into it, the consequences becoming more severe with each knock.

"We don't know that, darling," he asserted. "Like Jac said, her brain could be perfectly fine."

Eleanor's arm was wrapped around his front; she was already exhausted. He knew that, but he also knew that she wanted to be here. So he let her fall asleep in his arms. He had to start being a real dad to her because if, heaven forbid, this was what killed Serena, Eleanor was going to need him. He kissed her hair lightly, feeling her subconsciously relax in his embrace.

He stared into Serena's calm face, seeing no movement except in her eyelids; they were twitching. It caught his attention longer than it should have, being the only movement she was making. But it was movement and therefore it was a positive indication, surely, that at least something was going on in her mind.

"REM," he heard Jac's voice from the doorway. "Rapid Eye Movement," she clarified, sitting in the chair on Serena's other side with a soft groan caused by the weight she was carrying. "Happens when you're asleep and dreaming."

"So she's dreaming?" he asked quietly, making sure not to wake Eleanor as he looked up at the consultant. "That's a good sign, isn't it?"

Jac nodded. "If it isn't a nightmare." He broke his gaze from Jac as they both looked onto Serena's face; what was dancing through her mind? What was taunting her, hurting her, to the point she had drank herself into this state?

There was only one positive: if she was dreaming, her mind had to be working to some degree. He knew that people with severe hypothermia could become brain dead, and was thankful that Serena at least escaped that. "If she wakes up, I'm putting her in rehab."

"She doesn't need that," Jac said assertively. "She's functional. She's still able to operate, and she still runs this place. She's just...got a broken heart," she explained quietly. "I think she could do it herself, as long as you were there to help her." He looked at Jac again, wondering if she was right. She wasn't past saving. She still worked and loved. Her mind was still working, still aware of what she was doing. He was certain that she knew what she was doing, and he was also certain that she would only rebel against any formal attempts to control her.

Edward sighed and pressed his face into Eleanor's hair. "I don't want her ending up like her dad," he confessed quietly. "She's not that bad yet. He was never sober, even when he woke up. He would put whisky in his coffee in the morning, for God's sake. She's not doing that, at least."

Jac snorted quietly. "Only because it would taste _disgusting_," she grinned. Edward allowed a smile at her words, knowing it was not the sort of thing Serena would drink. "She can be saved, Edward." Edward felt so damn helpless. There was his wife – ex-wife, though could only think of her as his wife just now – within an inch of death, and nothing he could do was going to force her eyes open. "She loves you," whispered Jac. "You can see it every time she looks at you."

"She needs me," Edward argued. "There's a difference."

"She's fought you until she's blind," Jac laughed incredulously. "She wouldn't do that unless she was in denial."

"That, or she hates me," he smiled at the number of times in bitter rows she had screamed that she hated him. "But she wouldn't have-" he began before he cut himself short.

Jac's attention peaked. "She wouldn't have what, Edward?" she asked him. He was reluctant to admit it for fear of it sounding like he had used her when she was broken, but it had been the complete opposite. He had only allowed it because he genuinely thought that physical intimacy would remind her he loved her, and perhaps drag her off the ledge she was stood on. Perhaps it had done for a couple of days, but now, a week later, she was broken again. "Edward?"

He lowered his voice yet again. "She slept with me," he confessed. "We slept together. It was the night of Adrienne's funeral and she was in so much pain. She fell down the stairs and I was helping her into bed. I got her pyjamas," he recalled gently, thankful that Jac hadn't interrupted him. "And she told me she knew what she was doing. She wasn't out of it, Jac. I wouldn't do that to her. I honestly thought it would help her if she had some kind of...reminder. She was in so much _pain_," he repeated. "She was in pain and I was trying to help her."

Jac rested her arms across her bump and stared at him; he felt her analysing him, and he realised she was protecting Serena from him. Or trying to, anyway.

"My turn to 'fess up," Jac moaned, shifting slightly in her chair. "She said some things she shouldn't have earlier and I slapped her. And she slapped me. And we pushed each other. Michael and Jonny had to break us up," she explained.

"Sorry," Edward apologised for Serena. "I don't know what the hell she was playing at, hitting a pregnant woman."

"I do," Jac stated. Edward stared at her for a moment as Eleanor squirmed slightly under his arm, still asleep but most definitely uncomfortable. "She wanted me to slap her. She wanted someone else to hate her, rather than just herself, and she knew I was the one person who wouldn't take her snide remarks lying down. So I slapped her to give her what she wanted, even though I know she didn't mean a word of it. I probably shouldn't have but I though I was knocking some sense into her," she sighed.

Edward couldn't make heads nor tails of this; even Serena wasn't stupid enough to provoke Jac Naylor, a woman whose reputation preceded her. Was she?

He leaned his head on top of Ellie's, hearing her slow breathing as she slept. "She needs help," he said.

"No," contradicted the redhead opposite. "She needs _you_. Don't you see that you're what's been holding her together? If this had happened a year ago and you weren't here, I honestly don't think she would have coped."

"She hasn't coped this time."

"She's still alive!" Jac argued, the passion in her voice startling she as her tone turned into a harsh, whispered shout. "She just needs to find herself again." He watched stunned as Jac reached out and stroked Serena's cold face, tenderness he knew was rarely seen in her. "She's lost. She just needs you to help her on the right tracks again."

He ran his hand down over his face tiredly and admitted one of his greatest fears. "And what if I'm not strong enough for both of us?" he asked, beginning to doubt his ability to fulfil the promise he had made – that he would be strong while Serena was weak.

Jac shrugged. "You'll just have to be." Her ruthlessness was slightly frightening but he saw her point. "Everything feels impossible until we have no choice. And if you want to keep her, you've got no choice, Edward." There was a buzzing sound and Jac rolled her eyes when she saw the screen of her phone. "Maconie. The idiot will be having kittens."

Edward let out a soft laugh, recalling how Serena had always told him off for worrying about her, especially when she was pregnant; he had quickly discovered that her shortened patience and his increased worry had not been a great combination. He watched Jac get up and answer the phone, resting his hand on Serena's.

He felt his eyes getting heavy, exhausted with worry and fear. It only occurred to him now that it was Christmas Day, and he had planned a family day in an effort to get Serena smiling. It was ironic that he had wanted to make her live while she had wanted to die.

Eleanor was warm next to him, though he knew she was terrified of losing her mum. The girl had just lost the only grandparent she had known, and now she was facing the very real possibility of losing the mother she had always known as well. Briefly he cursed Serena's selfishness, but he couldn't hate her for it; she was in agony and he knew it was clouding her judgement. He did believe she knew what she was doing, but he could tell that her idea of right, wrong, love and hatred had become a bit distorted.

He squeezed her hand, hoping in vain to feel the pressure returned, and felt her pulse against his skin as he linked their hands securely, never wanting to let her go in case he could never get her back.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: This a bit of an odd chapter - the only one I've written from Jac's point of view. But I hope it works OK. thanks again to everyone who has read and reviewed so far!**

**Sarah x**

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Jac walked in on Boxing Day to see Eleanor and Edward once again sitting with Serena; though Edward had moved probably only three or four times in thirty-six hours, Eleanor was like Jac – restless.

She looked at the chart to see that Serena's temperature had risen to just about normal. It was time to take her off bypass and sedation and just pray to God that she was going to pull through. Jac was hopeful that there was some level of unconscious determination keeping Serena alive. "I'm taking her off bypass," Jac stated. "Her temperature is what it should be. Go home. Get some sleep. You won't know anything until morning anyway," she advised. She turned to Edward, who was about to argue until she cut him off. "Neither of you are any good to her exhausted and stiff from sleeping in a chair. Go and get a good night's sleep in a proper bed."

He was reluctant, but she could tell he saw her logic, and Eleanor needed to go home and sort herself out.

Jac's eyes fell on the girl whose make-up was non-existent and was in the same pyjamas she had been in when she arrived here in the early hours of Christmas morning. Her hair was a mess, her skin pale and her eyes tired; she was exhausted. "Come on, sweetheart," Edward sighed, pressing a soft kiss into Eleanor's head. "Let's get you home." He handed her the keys. "I'll meet you in the car. Do not even _think _about starting the engine. Got it?" he added sternly – the girl must have been learning to drive. She held her hands up in exasperated submission and strode out.

Edward took a step towards Jac. "I'll take her off bypass this afternoon, and we'll stop all sedation and see what happens," she explained, keeping to clinical fact. "Not that she was on much to begin with."

"Thank you," he said quietly. Jac was slightly startled to feel him give her a hug. She had seen his weakened heart earlier, and just what Serena was capable of doing to him. It was obvious to Jac that Serena was always going to be the one he really loved and, as it went, the one he would always save. She had a hold on him like Jac had never seen before and only Serena seemed to be blind to it.

She smiled slightly and patted his back, deciding that telling him to man up was not going to do him any good. He was doing the best he can and she had to acknowledge that. She gently informed him, "You're an idiot, but you're decent enough. Hurt her again and I'll castrate you."

"There's a compliment in there somewhere," he chuckled. She released him, hitting his arm lightly as he stepped back. "Right, I'm off to get Ellie a bed, bath and decent meal." He let out a short laugh. "Christ. It's like she eight years old again."

Edward was struggling. He was struggling to come to terms with the possible loss of Serena and Eleanor's fragile state, so much so that Jac had a feeling he was forgetting about himself. "You need a shave," she grinned. "Off you go. I'll call you as soon as anything changes," she promised. She watched him nod and walk away, and looked around at Serena. What a mess. Serena had always been someone for Jac to look up to – driven, determined, and the proof of where intelligence and resolution could get a person.

She walked away and sat at the nurses' station; a pair of strong hands fell on her shoulders and started massaging lightly. "You taking her off?" Jonny asked quietly.

"Yeah," Jac said. "I just hope she's going to pull through it."

"It's Serena Campbell. Have faith." He spun her around and she tried to force back the tears building in the back of her throat. She wasn't sure why she was wanting to cry; perhaps it was the combination of insane hormones and seeing Serena looking pretty much dead. "Oh, come here," he sighed. She felt him put an arm around her and pull her head into his warm chest. "If anyone can save her, Jac, it's you."

She nodded slightly. "Get her prepped."

By the time they were in theatre, Jac's resolve was beginning to shake. What if she couldn't do this? What if intelligence and resolution were not enough this time? She lifted the scalpel from the nurse's hand very carefully, glancing up at Jonny standing there watching her quietly. She knew he was only here to keep an eye on her, and she knew he was concerned she would stress herself into labour over this.

She made the incision and started the procedure. She tried to stick to method and technique and forget whose body she was slicing through. The identity of a patient never usually bothered Jac much, until it was one of her own. It was unprofessional, and she knew that was why she probably should have asked Elliot to do it instead, but she felt a need to see this through and never give up on Serena.

She tried to think of Serena's heart as a fuel pump in a car, just pumping mechanically to keep her going, but Jac couldn't help but wonder how many people had broken it. Edward most definitely had – that was plain to see. Her parents most likely had broken her heart and left a few scars. By her own admission, Serena had not been on speaking terms with Adrienne on the day she had died. Had Serena got to her in time or had she left it too late?

Was that where the madness had stemmed from? Now Jac actually thought on it, it was around the time her mother died that Serena had started to lose it. It was around then that she started to come into work smelling of alcohol and was half-cut when she left at the back of seven at night – two hours after her shifts usually ended. But she stood by what she had said: what Serena needed was what was left of her family, not a rehab centre so she could be irritated to death just after Jac had saved her life.

What Serena really needed, like everyone else in the world, was love, but she was too scared and stubborn to take the love Edward offered her. Because the man really did love her to pieces. It was obvious. He was an idiot for cheating on her all those years ago – the conclusion drawn by most from Serena's snide comments about young, beautiful women. But he was an idiot with a good heart. That much was clear. But whether he could break through to the real Serena was another matter entirely.

It was Serena's walls that were driving her to do these things; Jac knew the feeling herself. It was a wall of hatred designed to scare everyone off and allow those who dared to punish any sins. That was why Serena had provoked her on Christmas Eve. Though her words had stung, Jac knew she would never had said anything like that had she not herself been tormented by her own carry on.

Jac sighed a breath of exhausted relief when Serena's heart cooperated and started to beat alone, her lungs breathing alone too.

As she scrubbed out, she admitted quietly to Jonny, "I wasn't sure she was going to live."

"Neither was I," he confessed with a sad smile. "She's a tough cookie though."

It was only when they were back on the ward, Mo and Elliot anxiously awaiting news, that Jac saw just how important it was to save Serena. Not just for Edward or Eleanor, but for every doctor and nurse in this place who had once been able to look up to her. Everyone had had to watch Serena digging her own grave, with no power to stop her. If she did wake up, Jac was going to make damn sure she told Serena the way it was.

Jac looked at Mo and Elliot and said, "She's come off bypass. She's alive. Whether or not she wakes up is another matter," she explained what they knew already. "And if she does wake up, she'll be getting a telling off from half the hospital for being so bloody stupid," she ranted on, leaning back into a chair.

When Mo and Elliot nodded solemnly and returned to work, Jac looked at Jonny and saw that he was torn. Yes, Serena had verbally and physically attacked her, and she knew Jonny had a problem with that, but like Jac, he was no idiot. He watched Serena in free fall too, and saw that she was desperately pushing people out as far as possible.

"It has to stop," he asserted quietly. "She's been getting worse and worse for a month. Every time I saw her, there was less of the person I know," Jonny confessed that he too was worried about Serena's mentality as well as the physical state that was now his job to help improve.

Jac nodded slowly. "Edward's the one that's got to do it," she explained to the father of her child. "He's the only thing she's got left from her past."

Jac's head turned when she heard two somewhat familiar voices – Ric and Michael, bickering as usual. Though this time it seemed that Ric was hacked off because Michael had failed to tell him what had happened to Serena. "There is such a thing as a phone, you know, Michael," snapped Ric.

"Oh, well, I'm sorry I didn't call you first but we were kinda busy saving her life!" Michael retorted childishly. "Back me up here, Naylor!" he implored her.

She raised her hands up and said, "Michael's right, Ric. We've been monitoring her closely. And anyway, I would have thought you would know by now, considering Michael brought her onto your ward."

"Yes, thanks to Nurse Carter, when I asked why Serena hadn't shown up for her shift!" protested Ric.

Jonny stepped forward, ever the diplomat. "Look, all that matters right now is that Ms. Campbell is still in critical condition, and we're waiting to see, if and when she wakes up, what real damage has been done," he said, his voice level and calm. Jac absentmindedly took her hair tie out and turned her ponytail into a scruffy bun, not in the mood for three men fighting around her.

Ric turned and looked into Serena's room, and Jac's eyes followed to find the woman looking no better than before. "You _will_ tell me as soon as anything changes?" he asked, apparently doubting their ability to communicate after Michael failing to inform him. Jac nodded silently. She watched Ric briefly contemplate going into Serena's room but, deciding against it, he stalked huffily away muttering something about morons and phones.

Jac sighed and ambled to her feet, walking slowly and deliberately into Serena's room. Her eyes were twitching again, and Jac had an unpleasant feeling about what she was dreaming about. She clearly hadn't just hit the bottle over nothing at all, had she?

She sat down in the chair next to the bed and took her hand. "Right, madam," Jac said quietly and sternly. "This stops here. You've got more willpower than this, Serena Campbell. Edward and Eleanor need you. Ric needs you. Michael needs you. _I_ need you," she admitted quietly, whispering into the woman's ear. "Because if you think I can raise a child with only Jonny, the biggest child of them all, Sacha, Michael, Mo and Elliot around me, you're sadly mistaken. I need you to show me how it's done. I need you there to tell me what to do when I'm a mother, because I haven't got a clue. _You_ do."

Serena's face remained unchanged, her eyes unopened as her dormant mind appeared to torment her. "So you wake up, or so help me, I'll lose my foot up your arse. Pull yourself together. You've got more willpower than this, Serena Campbell," she finished, reiterating the previous point that the Serena she knew would never allow the cold and alcohol to beat her.

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**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to drop me a review and give me your opinion!  
Sarah x**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: I'm not sure I like what I've done here - some of this is hallucination and some is memory, but it feels a bit weird, haha. And too long. Thanks again to everyone who is reading and reviewing :)**

**Sarah x**

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Serena looked around. This was the bedroom she remembered as a tiny child, having lived there until she was about three or four years old.

She watched as a young woman she recognised as a more youthful version of her mother picked a crying baby from the cot. "I know it's cold, sweetheart," she sighed. "Shh," she added, hushing the infant with the same maternity she had used even to comfort an adult Serena when she had cried, whether over her father, her husband, her daughter or her work.

Serena squinted through the half-light to see a man leaning against the doorpost. "Give her to me, darling," he requested. His voice sounded slurred and uneven, as if he had just had one too many drinks, or perhaps hit on the head recently. Adrienne was clearly reluctant to hand the baby over. "Come on. I can quiet her down," Andrew insisted, his voice thick with an accent Serena had missed for all these years.

Adrienne sighed. "Go and sit down," she ordered him gently. He turned but tripped across the hallway, having to balance himself on the wall. He was _really_ drunk. Serena followed herself through to the old living room, and she could hear the howling wind outside. Andrew sat down and Adrienne passed the baby over to him carefully, not moving her hand from underneath until there was no chance of her hitting the floor.

"Now, what's the wrong with you, my dear?" he asked the child quietly, as if she was going to give him the answer. To Serena's amazement the child's cries softened. "Do you not like the wind, eh? Not like winter?" he said drunkenly. Adrienne was sitting in the other chair as she watched with obvious apprehension.

Serena stepped back, realising only now that she was wearing a hospital gown. "What _is_ this?" she asked aloud. She looked around but nobody answered or even acknowledged her presence.

The scene melted into a dusky summer's night, Scottish music blaring from a small building as midges swarmed in clouds around anyone who dared leave.

Serena stepped into the old hall, seeing people dancing and hearing their joyous laughter. She knew this place, though it was somewhere her memory only vaguely recognised. Her eyes fell upon a small child, too short for her age with thick brown curls falling down her back. Her Black Watch tartan dress was just slightly too long, a small knife in her sock.

"'Rena, baby, come and dance with Daddy!" a man called. Serena was startled as she realised she was watching her younger self step forward and take her father's hands, dancing a Virginia Reel as she laughed and he stumbled around blatantly drunk. Why was she here, forty years ago, in Kinlochlaggan hall?

Serena looked around for her mother, finding her sitting at the table with a worried eye firmly locked on her husband and daughter. Adrienne stood up when Andrew stumbled backwards and an eight-year-old Serena was knocked to the floor. "Andrew, that's quite enough," Adrienne said sternly.

"Oh, run and don't bother me," Andrew snapped, his accent thick as he helped his little girl to her feet. "You're OK, aren't you, darling?" he asked of the child. She nodded silently with a smile.

As she looked on, she only saw the contempt with which Andrew was treating Adrienne, and his completely irresponsible attitude. If Edward had been like this with Eleanor, Serena would have knocked him into next century with a kick. So why was Andrew allowed to attempt to look after his child while he was drunk. And he _was_ drunk. Adrienne scooped a younger Serena up in her arms, taking her over to the table and giving her some oatcakes and IrnBru as she sat on her mother's knee.

Oblivious to her parents' disagreement the child happily ate and drank while Andrew found a woman to dance with. Adrienne was looking on in dismay. Was this what life had been like for her? Watching over her husband constantly? Keeping their daughter out of any harm? Being the adult all the time must have been tiring for her, Serena quickly realised, if this was how a night out as a family had always gone.

The hall again disintegrated until she could feel the sun on her back and hear American accents all around her. She watched herself next to her husband, finding him as she collected her MBA diploma. Her youthful, dazzling smile outshone anything her now tired and worn face could ever produce as her gaze swept the crowd until she found her parents.

Serena found them too and stepped up behind them. "Andrew, quit it!" Adrienne hissed. "You can get a drink when we get back to the hotel!" She was grappling with him, forcing a hipflask out of his hands. His fingers wrapped tight around her wrist. "Let go of me!" she snapped, yanking herself free of his grasp.

Serena was horrified; she had never seen her father become aggressive. Ever. Was this a memory, or was she hallucinating? Was there something wrong with her? Why was she wearing a hospital gown?

Harvard faded into Fife – the wind blew straight across Serena as she watched herself and her husband walking along St. Andrew's beach in front of her parents. She noticed the small bump on her abdomen where Eleanor joined them, silent and unaware that she was to be born into madness.

Edward kissed a pregnant Serena lightly, jumping back slightly so as not to allow the North Sea into his shoes. Behind them walked Serena's mother and father, Andrew's arm linked in Adrienne's. As Serena and Edward stopped to look across the beach at a RNLI lifeboat going out, Andrew stumbled, and it became clear he was relying on his wife to keep his walking in a straight line.

Fife descended into England, where Serena watched herself walking in with her newborn baby. There was a shout of, "For Christ's sake, Andrew!" from the living room. Edward stopped her and went to investigate, saying, "I'll be back in a moment."

Serena shook her head at her own ignorance and stepped around herself, following her husband into the living room. She could not stifle the horrified gasp at the scene before her: Andrew had Adrienne's back to the wall, pinning her so she could not move. "Andrew," Edward said solemnly. "Your daughter and granddaughter are out there. Behave yourself!" he whispered urgently.

Andrew stepped back with a glare at his wife, his temper falling once again. Edward left briefly and returned with his own wife and child, and a false smile as he shot Adrienne a worried glance. Their eyes met for only a moment before Adrienne shook her head gently, as if to say that he couldn't change things for her.

England morphed into Scotland, and Serena was in her father's old car, snow swirling outside like the pure white hell she knew it could be. She sat in the passenger seat and watched him step unsteadily out of a Newtonmore pub she was sure no longer existed, and into the car. She smelled whisky from him when he sighed and started the engine. He switched on the radio. "The Newtonmore to Laggan road is currently impassable, with a foot of snow lying on the road. If it is absolutely necessary to reach your destination, please get on the A9. Please note that the stretch between Kingussie and Dalwhinnie is passable only with extreme care."

Andrew muttered, "Bloody snow," and reversed out of his parking space and headed towards the next village, where he soon found the A9. He turned the radio up and took out his hipflask on the deserted road.

When the signs for Laggan and Dalwhinnie were approached Serena realised what was about to happen, and that she could not stop it. The sign for Ralia was upon them and the speed at which her father took that corner was unreal. She felt the control disappear; all she could see was a blizzard.

The bright light blinded her as she breathed in the smell of antiseptic. "Edward," she forced out instinctively. She looked around. This was Darwin ward. She could see Jac Naylor through the open door, telling Jonny Maconie off for one thing or another. She remembered their fight and made a mental note to apologise.

She glanced to the side to find Edward sleeping in a chair. How long had he been here? How long had she been unconscious? What the bloody hell was that, what she had just experienced? She let him sleep; he didn't look very good. He looked exhausted. And where was Eleanor?

She lay there for a moment, trying to recall how she had ended up here. She reached out for Edward's arm, his skin feeling far, far warmer than she had been expecting. He jumped awake. "Serena," he breathed. "Just wait a moment 'til I get Jac, OK?" Serena nodded, not having the energy or the motivation needed to argue with him. He ran out and shouted on Jac, who came as quickly as her baby-inflated body allowed.

"Well," Jac said. "You're finally awake."

"How long was I out?" she asked.

"A week. It's New Year's Eve," Edward informed her.

"If you ever do anything so bloody stupid again, I'll smack you so hard your grandchildren will feel it. Got it?" Jac threatened. "Who in their right mind goes outside, drunk, in the middle of the night when it's minus God only knows what outside?!" she ranted on. Serena cursed herself. Had she just woken from hypothermia? "You're lucky Michael found you when he did."

"Michael Spence?" Serena asked.

"Yeah. We all owe him a massive thank you," Edward stated. "Anyway. You're awake now, thank God. How are you feeling?"

"Like crap," Serena admitted sourly, though she knew it was her own silly actions had put her here.

The thing that worried her was the physical state of her brain, something Jac seemed to realise. "We've scanned your brain yesterday and didn't find anything, but how is your memory?"

"Better than ever," Serena sighed, recalling that madness she had just walked through. Some of it had to be hallucinations, but there were parts she could not doubt. She remembered the ceilidh incident well, even if she had seen it as an outsider this time. She said no more for fear of sounding insane.

"Well, we'll get a neurologist to double check but I _think_," Jac huffed, dropping the chart back into its container, "you're a lucky little sod and have avoided any serious brain injury."

"That's me," Serena smirked. "Little Miss Lucky." Jac grinned to herself and Serena added, "About the argument I started. I am so, so sorry, Jac."

"Don't worry about it," she brushed away her apology. "People are idiots when they're in pain," she concluded with a slight nod of her head.

Aching like hell, Serena extended her arms in a moment of rare maternal tenderness. "Come here," she beckoned Jac, pulling her into a tight hug. To Serena's surprise, the normally frigid redhead squeezed her gently back, and she felt her press her lips softly into her hair. When she pulled back, Jac smiled and went away to speak to Jonny, whose face lit up with relief. Did they really care that much about her?

Serena looked around to Edward. "I'm sorry," she whispered to him. She felt her vulnerabilities opening up again, but this time it wasn't the harsh ripping of being forced. It was the willing exposure to a man she loved.

He took her hand in his and interlocked their fingers. "Don't ever do that to me again," he warned her gently. "I thought I'd lost you," he confessed, kissing her hand.

She groaned. "I feel like hell. I'm never touching alcohol again," she joked. Edward's head snapped up, though, and she realised that, actually, maybe that was what needed to happen. Maybe for her to be able to live properly again she had to take away the greatest source of destruction in her life. "I really do have to stop drinking, don't I?"

Edward nodded his head slightly. "Yes, Serena, you do. It nearly killed you."

She felt the world start spinning again, only noticing now that it had stopped. She looked into his blue eyes and felt the intensity of their bond once more as it burned through her like the truth and love it provided. "I..." she began. She swallowed hard, trying to admit to what she could not when she was drunk and broken. "I love you."

Edward smiled slightly at the words. "I love you," he replied. "Which is why I'm asking you to stop this, Serena. If something like that happens again, you won't be so lucky. I'll give you all the help you need but please – no more drinking?"

With caution Serena nodded her agreement. He leaned over and kissed her softly; she reached up with her free hand and pulled him a little closer until he broke away and rested his forehead against hers for a moment.

She saw that look in his eyes. "What's wrong?" she asked of him.

"No, it's just...well..." he trailed away, looking embarrassed as he leaned back into his chair, his hand still locked in Serena's.

"Spit it out."

"I've missed you," he smiled sadly. She did not know whether he referred to the years apart or the week she spent unconscious, but she also didn't care much. The fact that someone had actually missed her reminded her that she wasn't alone.

Someone loved her.

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**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: I think we've established that this site is throwing a tantrum today! Ugh. Anyway. This is probably ridiculously long, for which I apologise in advance! I've not written it all at once, which is probably why it's so long, because I've been in London all weekend. Me and Brooke went to M&Ms World. Are you all jealous? ;) haha. Thanks as always to everyone who is reading and reviewing!**

**Sarah x**

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Not long after Edward left to pick Eleanor up, Serena found her mind wandering. She was trying to discern the real from the fantasy, and the confusion was maddening. She was sure the ceilidh was a memory, though she had seen it from the perspective of enlightenment rather than juvenile ignorance.

Why had it all come to her when she wasn't able to fully analyse what she saw? Was this fate's way of telling her she could not fix what she had never suffered? She had never actually suffered her father's drinking problem until now – until she started stumbling down that road after him. But Adrienne had failed where Edward seemed to be succeeding. Edward was able to steer Serena in the right direction, but had Adrienne simply allowed Andrew to take that road with no effort to stop him?

Serena's thoughts approached the scene she wanted to forget most. The one she could only hope was the hallucination she believed it to be. She closed her eyes and saw again her mother's back pressed to the wall, her dad towering over the woman, reminding Serena of where her own considerable height had come from.

She definitely remembered that morning, walking in with a newborn Eleanor to her parents' house, hearing an exasperated shout from the living room. She had thought Andrew had clumsily knocked over a glass or tripped over the coffee table. Edward had stopped her going through, and she had stupidly obeyed his protective orders. Had she missed her one chance to discover the truth while she could still do something about it?

She wondered how her parents had lived and loved, and how they had managed to survive together. If Andrew had been the man Serena now feared him to be, how could Adrienne have loved him? The man Serena had seen in her dreams and memories had no need for a wife; what he needed was a minder and a carer. And yet, while their relationship must have morphed from a marriage to a single-sided reliance, she had stayed. Adrienne had remained with Andrew until the day he died and forever afterwards. Serena doubted she would have been able to do that. She would have had neither the patience nor the courage.

She remembered the way he had spoken to Adrienne at that ceilidh, and both the ways Serena recalled it. As a child, naïve and unable to understand the complexities of such a relationship, she had not thought anything of it. As an adult with an outsider's view, it had actually frightened her to see how little power Adrienne had in that marriage. The family had not been a unit, but a woman who looked after a man and child, making all the effort and receiving nothing in return.

It only reminded Serena of what a miserable excuse for a daughter she was. She felt that, even while it was actively hidden from her, she should have seen there was something off about her parents' relationship. She should have realised the kind of subtle abuse her mother had put up with for the whole of her married life.

But now Serena feared the abuse had not always been subtle. She could not wipe the image of her mother's back against the wall at her father's hands, and the idea that she had never noticed that there was something wrong. What hurt more was the idea that Adrienne had felt unable to approach her daughter for help during her adult life. Was she really such a forbidding and inaccessible person that her own mother had not felt she could have asked for help?

Exhausted, she allowed her tired tears to fall down her cheeks as she muddled through her own mind in an agonising and desperate effort to save herself. She had no answers. Could she live without answers? Could she live never knowing?

Perhaps she had no choice. They all had taken that from her in their attempts to defend and protect her from the life she may have been forced to lead. She had to accept now that there had been no real malice. Not towards her, at least; stupidity, perhaps, but not malice. They truly had her best interests at heart. When she looked at Edward she no longer saw a man of bad intent. His intention had never been to hurt her, even when he cheated on her, but he had never had the ability to see past the immediate and into the distance.

How many times had she had to remind Edward of what he was responsible for, and who he was meant to put first? What if the cycle was to start over and their relationship was to turn into that of her parents, with one simply enduring the other. That wasn't love. That was reliance. Something she was trying to break away from. She couldn't banish one reliance only to fall into another in Edward. Her mind was not what it once was, and that frightened her. She remembered being so strong...where had she grown so weak? At what point had she turned into this person she didn't even recognise?

Maybe she didn't recognise those vulnerabilities in herself because, until now, she had been able to ignore them. Nobody had shown her the light. She should have shown herself the light when she realised that nothing was what she had always believed it was. She should have talked to Edward. Her mother. Eleanor. Jac. Michael. She couldn't talk to a bottle, could she? The bottle she drowned herself in had held no answers. It hadn't even told her the questions she had needed to ask herself and those she loved the most. It hadn't shown her the right path to take. It had only clouded her vision in darkness until she was blind to every path in front of her, forcing her to stand still. There was the issue that had been the near-fatal factor. She had been forced to stand still, and she had always found taking steps easier than standing still.

"Knock knock," a familiar American drawl announced itself. She looked to see Michael Spence standing before her with a bunch of flowers. "Do you know how damn hard it is to get decent flowers on New Years' Eve?!" he exclaimed, but he did so with a smile as he handed her them.

"Thank you," she murmured. She was suddenly embarrassed to be around him in the knowledge that he had been her saviour. Or, more specifically, she was embarrassed by the actions she took that meant she needed a saviour in the first place. All her life she had been strong and unyielding, only to find now that those traits had landed her in a hospital bed with Michael, Edward, Eleanor, Jac, Jonny, Ric, Harry, Mary-Claire – pretty much everyone she knew – waiting for her to break.

The sheer number of names that sprang to mind surprised Serena. She saw only now that all these people really did care about her; she wouldn't be alive now if they didn't.

She looked around and watched him sit down. She had only one question for him, and she wasn't sure he could answer it. "Why did you save me?" she asked him gently.

"I saved you because you're worth more than dying in the snow, so drunk you don't even know who you are," he replied instantly. Serena smiled wryly; she didn't believe she was worth what everyone said she was. She felt useless, a burden on those she loved and who claimed to love her.

"I'm not really," she sighed. "I'm so bloody stupid."

"No, you're not," he retorted quickly, yet his tone was soft and caring. "You're hurt and you dealt with it badly. That doesn't make you stupid." He smirked slightly and added, "If it did, I would be in the Guinness Book of Records for being the stupidest man alive."

Serena let out a quiet laugh. "They should have special classes for people like us." She started to feel uncomfortable with the truth of her mindset coming to the surface in front of Michael, but she was not entirely sure why. After all, he had been the one to find her dying in the snow, hadn't he? That was about as broken as she had ever been, and he had been the one to see it first hand.

"Yeah, probably. But we're a special kind of people," he grinned. "We're the ones who take anything that's thrown at us and let it hurt, because we know that's the only way."

She knew that was true. The only thing she knew was worse than pain was to feel nothing. There wasn't much she could do about nothingness. Pain could be relieved with alcohol and fear. Nothingness was just a wave that crashed over her until she could not see, hear or feel – it was something she knew not how to deal with. She wasn't able to deal with numbness, or deafness, or blindness. It left her with nothing around her but a dark vacuum she could not escape.

She breathed in the scent of the flowers and closed her eyes, listening to the sound of Michael's breathing and feeling the warmth of the room around her. She only noticed now that these were things she had forgotten to acknowledge, never mind appreciate.

"What's Edward saying about this?" he asked her. She heard the curiosity in his tone and she was not entirely comfortable with it; was she to become the subject of hospital gossip? Was everyone talking about stupid, insane Serena Campbell who passed out drunk in the snow and almost killed herself?

She opened her eyes at that question. What _was_ Edward saying? That he loved her? That he wanted to help her through the obstacles she was sure to face along the way to becoming sober and reasonably sane? She wasn't sure what his intentions really were. The man was unpredictable. Well, actually, he could be predicted, as Serena had discovered years ago; all she had to do was think of the most intelligent thing he could do and he would surely do the total opposite.

He was not the most committed individual, but she was trying to trust him not to leave her again. She was trying to trust him to stick by her but she didn't know if it was wise. She didn't know where to go from here. She only knew that if she started drinking again, it _was_ going to kill her.

"I don't really know what he's saying," she admitted. She watched Michael wonder what she meant by that. She didn't want to hear him ask that question, so she added, "He's _saying_ he loves me."

"But you don't think he means it," Michael nodded. She sighed; she didn't know if he meant it or if he was just trying to tell her what he thought she wanted to hear. "Well, I think he means it. He wouldn't put up with you if he didn't."

"Hmm," she muttered non-committally. She thought on all the things he had done throughout their history. He had shielded her, though under her mother's orders, from any truths that could harm her. He had made her feel like he loved her, if only for a short time. He had sat with her for a week until she had woken, with no guarantee that she was even going to survive. But he hadn't loved her enough to defy Adrienne and tell Serena the truth. He hadn't loved her enough to be brutally honest with her. He hadn't loved her enough to force her to address her behaviour when it came to him and their relationship, or her relationship with alcohol, until it was _almost_ too late.

He had been a jerk at times too – cheating on her being the lowest he had ever gone – but she reminded herself that while his mind was moronic, his heart was good. She was so confused; she loved him, but she hated his stupidity. He didn't think. He just did. And then thought about it when it blew up in his face. He was human where she pretended to be otherwise, in the hope she could become something more than human – a being that only felt the good of life and was galvanised completely to be ignorant to the bad. She was beginning to wish she was more like Edward and had settle for humanity.

"What if I trust him and he cheats on me again? What then?"

She hadn't realised she said that aloud until she saw the surprise in Michael's face; was it because she had actually admitted her insecurities? The people she worked with seemed to think she was infallible with no insecurities or worries. They didn't see that she was not like that at all. She didn't care what they thought of her, but what she thought of herself really did matter, and at the moment she didn't particularly like herself.

"Then you kick his ass."

"Just like that?" she asked sceptically.

"Just like that."

In fairness, she had done that before and survived. If the need were to arise, she could do it again.

Serena's head turned when she heard Edward's voice outside the room, speaking to Eleanor and warning her to keep her mother calm. Michael said quietly, "I should go."

"You don't have to," Serena quickly told him. For some reason she wanted him there, if only to help her face Eleanor after being so ridiculously mad for weeks on end. But all the same he smiled, kissed her cheek and walked out. She watched his hand fall onto Edward's shoulder as he passed.

Eleanor was almost running when she came in the room, and almost suffocated Serena with a cuddle. "OK, darling," Serena gasped. "I'm still a bit sore," she confessed quietly. She felt slightly awkward as Eleanor released her immediately but, feeling the need to be close to her daughter once more, she said, "Oh, who cares?" and pulled her back into a tight embrace. She didn't really mind if it meant she could feel her daughter n her arms once more.

She closed her eyes and was thankful stupidity hadn't killed her, and vowed never to put her daughter in such a position again. The girl was barely an adult and yet she had to deal with what was hidden from Serena when she was Eleanor's age. If the truth was to be told, had Edward acted how Serena had recently, Serena would have done all in her power to hide the worst of it, even if it was only so Eleanor would never feel badly about her father.

"Never leave me," Eleanor whispered. "I thought you were going to die."

"Most people would have died, but your mum is too stubborn for her own good," Edward smirk. Serena glared at him over Eleanor's shoulder as he sat down in the chair closest to her. Eleanor sat down next to him and leaned her head against his shoulder; Serena scanned her child's face to find she had not been sleeping. The guilt soared through Serena upon the realisation that she had caused so much trouble.

Edward's hand soon found Serena's through the silence. Why was he being like this with her? She had given him no reason to care about her; in fact, there were times in the past that she had treated him really quite badly, with contempt and anger. She fell back into her pillow. "When can I get out of here?" she groaned.

"When Jac clears it," retorted Edward.

"Why Jac?" demanded Serena. She didn't like the idea that Jac was to determine how long she was to be held here.

"Because she's the only one in this place that doesn't let you bully her."

It was a fair point. Admittedly, Serena knew her tendency to force her way through life was considered by many as a form of bullying. But it was how she had lived for most of her life, and the only way she really knew how to live. She was too young to be set in her ways and yet too old to be changed, and she hated the state of limbo she felt stuck in.

She allowed Edward to again link his fingers with hers but somehow felt disconnected from him. It was if she was hiding from the years and all she felt for Edward, because her heart could not face the dilemma her rationality created for it.

She looked at an uncharacteristically quiet Eleanor and smiled slightly, her fears of her daughter's hatred allayed as she smiled and said quietly, "It's good to have you back, Mum."

Serena nodded, not really knowing what to say to her own daughter. But she knew exactly what she wanted from Edward: a promise and some answers.

The thing when it came to Edward was that she could kiss him until they turned to stone and she could fight him until they were blind, but he loved her when he was left alone and she wasn't sure she was worth his love. Her madness was more than he had a duty to endure, and she felt he had every right to take Eleanor from her and just leave. After all, there was only so much she could expect of a person as weak as Edward was.

She knew he was not a strong person. He was not made of inflexible steel as she was; he was made of yielding alloy, easily buckled and scraped, unable to withstand the fury of the crash. And she was more than aware of the extend of the crash she had survived; she had crashed into the brick wall of heartache she had hurtled towards for months, and the fact she had survived, she felt, could well be a miracle.

So she let Edward hold her hand despite the distance she felt between them.

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**Hope this is OK - there's still quite a bit to come!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: You'll be glad to know this is considerably shorter than the last chapter :P thanks again to everyone who has read and reviewed so far!**

**Sarah x**

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Serena stepped into her house; that one step through the door chilled her to the bone as she remembered just how much far she had destroyed herself every night in this place. The lights went on and she reminded herself that Edward was here and she had to keep herself together. She had to put on the mask of strength and happiness. She had to lie, as she always did, because it kept those around her from worrying.

But she couldn't anymore. She had none of that kind of strength left in her. All she wanted to do was sit in Edward's arms and cry her heart out. She wanted the answers but couldn't ask the questions, and it was tearing her apart until she was free falling to the icy ground at her feet.

She could not believe her life had turned out this way; it felt like only yesterday she was studying at Harvard during the day, falling in love with Edward at night, visiting her parents during spring break and at Christmas...but now all that was gone. Now she was left with who she was and who she once was, and the stark comparison of the two to remind her that she was not the same. She was different, and she wasn't sure she liked that.

It was the eighth day in January but it felt like this past week had been a month long. Time was moving too slowly for her liking, each day longer than the last. She wished her life would just hurry up and get it all over and done with. Skip the pain and confusion and anger and heartache and just get to the one inevitability of life – death. It was just irritating that she had to go through all this only for it to mean nothing in the end anyway. She didn't mean anything to Edward and Eleanor except a burden and a danger.

Her antics had caused them worry and, though that meant she did have to accept they cared on some level about what happened to her, she couldn't see how they could really love her. But then Edward had betrayed her, hadn't he? And she still loved him.

She still loved a man who had cheated on her, shown up here without a warning of any kind, failed to tell her he was divorcing Mindy, gone behind her back more times than she wanted to know about when it came to her parents...why? Why didn't she want him completely out of her life?

Was it because she knew he was the one who could keep her alive? The idea of death seemed appealing, but so did the fight for life. The worst times of her life were the ones that, in a bizarre way, she never wanted to end. Struggling meant she had to pay attention to her life and really try, whereas having a clear path made it too easy to miss things along the way – something Adrienne and Andrew had decided to force on her. She was finding that she would rather suffer and survive in pain than stroll through life and contentedly take what she wanted.

She felt like she was losing her mind here. Who in their right mind would rather struggle than have it easy?

She felt Edward's hand fall onto her leg; she had not been able to share very much intimacy with him as Eleanor had been a constant presence during her time on Darwin, and now the prospect of being alone with him frightened her. She looked into his eyes, the blue stirring into a wave she could not hope to break through. "Don't pretend you're OK if you're not, Serena," he implored her gently. "That's how you ended up in that mess in the first place."

She nodded slightly, a lump building in her throat as she attempted to curb the flood she knew she could not put off forever. She'd already tried that and it had very nearly been the death of her. "Edward," she began quietly, swallowing her tears back for the moment. "I'm going to ask you something, and I want the truth, OK?" He nodded and waited for her to speak. "Did...did Dad ever hit Mum?" He looked away from her for only a moment, and that was all the answer she really needed. "When?" she demanded softly.

Edward hesitated before he eventually said, "I said I wouldn't lie to you now, Serena, but you've got to understand I had no choice but to keep it quiet before."

"Mum made you, didn't she?" Serena guessed. Andrew would not have needed to demand it be kept quiet – his presence in Adrienne and Serena's lives would have been enough to convince Edward to hold his tongue. But she knew her mother would have asked him not to say anything about the matter to her. "When, Edward?"

He sighed. "I only saw it a couple of times," he confessed, his voice barely more than a slight whisper. "Once when we all went up north, just before you fell pregnant, your mum and I were picking him up from the pub in Laggan, and he didn't want to go home. He threw her across the pub and I had to keep him back from her. She hit her head and we waited to make sure she was OK."

Serena closed her eyes, furious with her long-gone father. "What did she say?"

"Called him a moron, told him to get in the car and asked me not to tell you," Edward replied. "I don't think that was the first time it happened." She opened her eyes and saw him giving her a sad, apologetic look. He was sorry for lying. No wonder he had wanted out of her family if that was what he had put up with. "When we went round to their house in Surrey with Ellie for the first time, do you remember I stopped you for a moment?" Serena nodded, dreading now that her subconscious had been truthful with her. "I walked in on him holding her with her back against the wall. She used to just say he was being an idiot."

"Idiocy didn't give him the right to put his hands on my mother," Serena retorted, and it came out in a harsh snarl even she had not expected; Edward looked taken aback, slightly afraid of her, even. "Sorry," she mumbled when she realised that her reaction had been a bit fierce.

"It's alright. I completely agree."

"Promise me something, Edward," she said, looking up into his face. "Promise me you'll never let me turn into him."

"I've been making sure of that for over twenty years, Serena," he reminded her quietly. "You just didn't know it." She sighed and leaned her head into his chest, wrapping her arms around him. She closed her eyes and recalled the vision of her mother with her back to the wall. She had not even seemed scared; she had looked almost bored. Was Andrew's temper something she had just grown accustomed to, hiding it from their child?

She felt that first sob rattle through her chest as her heart finally opened and her mind let all the pain out. Edward's arms fell around her body and he let her cry. Had he expected this?

Before she could stop herself she had relinquished the control she tried to hold over herself and just sat there and cried until it physically hurt, her shoulders, chest and head aching before long. Her face was buried into his chest. "Shh." Edward hushed her quietly. "It's OK."

She couldn't bear the idea that she now had to rebuild everything she thought she knew from the ground up, starting with what remained of her confidence. Then she had to rebuild everyone's faith in her. And then she had to rebuild her family. The prospect was daunting. She didn't think she could do it.

He lifted her up and wiped away her tears as she continued to lose control over her emotions. "When you were out of it on Darwin on Christmas morning," he began slowly and softly, "I made you a promise."

"And what was that?"

"When you're weak, I'll be strong. When you let go, I'll hold on. When you have to cry I swear I'll be there to dry your eyes. When you're lost and scared to death and you feel like you can't take another step, I'll hold on to you. I'll hold on so much tighter than I ever did before," he finished. "I love you."

His little speech made Serena want to completely break down in tears, just so he knew how much such a thing meant to her in her current breakable state. He stood up and took her hand.

"Where are we going?" she asked quietly.

"There's something we still need to do," he explained. She silently stood up, feeling his arm around her waist as he kissed her temple lightly. He took her to the kitchen and opened the glass paned cupboard in which she had kept all the numerous bottles of alcohol, all of which had been opened – wine, vodka, whisky, anything she had the notion to drink. He took them all out and lined them up on the counter.

She stared at them all for a few seconds; this was what she had used to numb the pain so she could survive her life. The irony of reality would have been really quite funny if it hadn't put her on her deathbed. In these bottles was a chemical that changed everything she was, burying all the good in her and lifting all the bad to her surface for all to see. And yet it had kept her alive for years without her even realising how dependent she was becoming on it.

He handed her a bottle of whisky; she looked up at him disbelievingly. Why was he handing her the very thing that could destroy her? She knew he could be a bit thick at times but this took the biscuit, surely. Even he knew better than to hand someone like her a bottle of whisky.

She looked into his eyes again and saw that he was pushing her to do something, but as to what she was uncertain. Was it an attempt to teach her moderation? If so, she knew it would not work. She and alcohol did not work in moderation. Her mind didn't allow such a thought. "Pour it down the drain," she ordered him, holding it out to him.

He shook his head. "It doesn't mean anything if I do it. _You_ have to do it."

Reluctantly she unscrewed the lid and allowed the fumes to assault her. To her disgust all she smelled was a poisonous relief, one she could not resist without effort. She turned and carefully poured it into the sink, watching it swirl down the drain. It was with a heavy heart that she realised this was the only way she could live now. She could not drink socially like normal people. She was too much like her father for her own good.

She threw the bottle into the recycling box and reached for another. And another. And another, until every bottle was empty and waiting to be recycled. She was able now to accept that she had to steer clear altogether. Her house and office had to be alcohol-free; she had to learn some self-discipline while she was at parties and conferences where alcohol was sure to be found. She had to let Edward help her. She had to let Eleanor love her. She had to change her ways.

She turned and smiled slightly at Edward. His hand fell onto her face as he smiled lovingly down on her. She found she needed him like she needed all she had just thrown away; she couldn't shake the feeling of merely replacing one addiction with another and, though she had some reservations about fully trusting him, she couldn't deny that she now both needed and loved the man she had been divorced from for far longer than they had been married.

With that in mind, she leaned in and kissed him with all her might, trying to feel the passion she had felt so long before now. All the feeling she had once been capable of felt so far away. All she was familiar with now was anger, pain and confusion, when she wasn't numb. She drove him harshly into the hallway and into the wall, ignoring the aching of her muscles. Her chest hurt with tears she was trying not to shed, and she could feel him holding back on her. He was kissing her, his hands against her waist, under her shirt. But he was being careful and she wished he wouldn't.

She started unbuttoning his shirt and led him up to her bedroom, unable to decide if he was what she wanted. But at the moment he was the key to her survival.

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**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me your opinions!  
Sarah x**


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: I'm, again, unsure of whether or not I did this right. Oh well. Thanks again to everyone who has read and reviewed so far :)**

**Sarah x**

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When Valentine's Day came around over a month later, Serena was absolutely dreading it; she was expected to partake in either one of two things. Either she had to go out with Edward – something she had outgrown _years_ ago – or she had to traipse down to Albie's with the likes of Michael Spence, Mo Effanga and Sacha Levy. She liked them fine enough, but she hadn't set foot in a pub since she had woken on Darwin on at New Year.

The other option, usually, would have been a night in with Eleanor. This year, however, she was miles and miles away, at university. A night in with Edward was commonplace and she felt cruel even thinking of subjecting him to another night alone with her in her living room.

She was immensely yet silently proud of herself; with some pain and difficulty, she hadn't touched alcohol since Christmas Eve. Perhaps it was too insignificant to take any pride in, but she did nonetheless. And for her to feel any pride for that achievement, it took the acknowledgement that she had been, as Edward had tried so many times to tell her, developing a serious and dangerous problem with the substance.

As she stood at the AAU nurses' station, she watched the ward running like clockwork. A pair of arms locked around her waist. She repressed a smile. "Not at work, Edward," she berated him quietly. His lips touched her jaw lightly; she saw Harry Tressler glance at them with a slight smile before turning away.

"Why not?" he replied. "Everyone knows anyway."

"Maybe, but they don't need to see it. Poor Harry looks like he's about to throw up," she joked with a nod towards the young doctor who had just smiled at her. The boy had been acting rather oddly towards her since her return, like he didn't know what to say. It was understandable, she supposed, after he had seen her within an inch of losing her life.

He laughed quietly and he asked the dreaded question, "What are we doing tonight then?" She turned as his grip loosened slightly, his arms hanging casually around her body. "Do you want to go out?"

"We're a bit old for that," she smirked to herself. Their second shot at sustaining a relationship was more level headed, more mellow and more understated than their first. Perhaps that had been part of their problem. The only thing more potent this time was the openness between them, forced by her struggle for control and his need to know she was living properly. Her need to keep control made life easier and harder for them at the same time; there were occasions she attempted to control him as well as herself, but she usually managed to reign herself in.

She considered for a moment their options. She would very much like a quiet night out with Edward and their friends. She would very much like to be able to trust herself surrounded by people drinking, and not have them feel awkward about it. But she wasn't confident enough in her own willpower.

She leaned up and quickly kissed him when she noticed the time; she was due in theatre on Keller with Michael in twenty minutes. "Got to go," she told him, wriggling free of his loving embrace.

She stalked away and tried to sort her head out. She had started to learn to keep her mind in check over the past month, for fear of turning into a mental case again; after all, who would stick by her if she did _that_ again? She knew there was only so much she could expect of those she loved. She let on to the world that she needed nobody, but she did need certain people, and those she did could see through that façade.

She was grateful that she rarely had to ask anymore. They could all see when she was coping and when she was struggling, and they would not leave her to struggle alone. And for that, she held some affection for those certain colleagues and friends.

One woman she had not expected to find a comrade in was Jac Naylor; the cold redhead had continued to keep an eye on her even when she was discharged, and when she returned to work the first person to find her and share their break with her was Jac. She had sought her out before even Michael or Ric.

Jonny Maconie, who had threatened to strike back if she dared hurt Jac or his child, was also supportive in his own way, bringing her a cup of coffee or some food whenever he ventured onto her ward. She had a sneaking suspicion he didn't thinking she was eating properly which, in all fairness, sometimes was quite true. In the time before she had been hospitalised, she had started to drink instead of eat, and she was sure Jonny had picked up on that where others hadn't, and to bring her crisps, coffee and biscuits was his way of ensuring that she at least ate something.

Ric Griffin had been quietly supportive, getting the whole story from Edward and Jac and Michael rather than her, and she knew why he asked others instead of her – he didn't want to risk her thinking that he respected her any less, because he didn't. She knew that, and she was thankful, because she had always been quite grateful for the quiet way in which he stood by her when she needed it.

Michael Spence, once she had got back to work a week after being discharged, had absolutely ripped her apart in his office. He had told her that if she ever put him through that again he would come down on her like a tonne of bricks. Of course, it would normally be the other way around and she would be warning him as such, but she felt he had the right to kick off about it just once. She hadn't thought about him, or anyone else, when she had blindly stumbled into that winter's night. So, yes, the dressing down he gave her was more than thoroughly earned. She had almost had to laugh when he concluded his rant at her with a tight cuddle and a whisper in her ear, "Good to have you back, Rena."

The memory echoed in her mind as the very same American pulled her back to the present. "You're awfully quiet, Serena," he quipped, and she saw the smirk in his eyes despite the surgical mask. "What's up?"

"Nothing," she muttered as she fixed her eyes onto the job at hand. It was a lie, of course, but she was frightened to admit it. She didn't want to admit to Michael that she didn't think she could be the same woman as before.

"Yeah, there is," he confidently contradicted her.

"Isn't."

"Is."

"Isn't."

"Is."

She looked up at him and saw he wasn't going to let the matter go. He seemed to have learned that sometimes he had to push it if he wanted to ensure her safety and happiness. "I..." she began. "I don't want to stay in tonight," she explained. "It's Valentine's Day. I have Edward this year. I should be out with him, or out with you and everyone else. But I can't, can I?"

"Why not?" he challenged her assumptions. "What's stopping you?"

She glared at him. "You know what's stopping me."

"Just because it's there, doesn't mean you gotta drink it," he pointed out fairly.

Serena snorted. "Well, Mr. Pot. I'm Ms. Kettle. Glad to meet you," she cracked. She met Michael's indignant gaze and, for the first time in far too long, she burst out laughing with him; it felt so bizarrely good, even if it was at her own immaturity. He shook his head as he continued working on their patient, still chuckling quietly.

Her smile faded as she remembered what they were previously discussing. "So. Do I be boring and stay in or do I risk a night out?" she asked his opinion. It was something she valued more than she had ever thought, until now, that she would.

"I don't know," he answered her honestly. "It depends how you're feeling."

"You know, I don't even _want_ to drink, Michael," she tried to explain her reasoning and her mind's retaliations. "But sometimes I feel like I need to, even though I know what might happen to me," she said.

"Yeah, that's kinda the definition of alcoholism," he replied. "But I know you, Serena. If you don't wanna do something, you don't do it and we know better than to try and make you. So if you treat the alcoholic part of your mind in the same _horrendous_," he grinned at her through his mask, "way you treat us, you'll be fine."

"In theory, perhaps," she allowed in acknowledgement of the cheeky but very much solid foundations of his plan for her. "But it doesn't quite work that way. Sometimes alcoholic Serena shouts more than normal Serena," she put it in simple terms for him.

Michael sighed. "You and Edward come out with us tonight," he offered. "I won't let you drink. Promise."

She hesitated. "It's fine. I don't want any awkwardness."

"There won't be."

He seemed to let it go so she could consider her options. She knew it could go wrong, but she couldn't keep avoiding it just because there was the chance it would end in tears. She felt like could perhaps be capable of it, but there was the other part of her that screamed at her that she was too weak. And then there was the calmer, more rational side that told that even if she did slip, there would be people she knew and loved there who would catch her before she fell.

It was only when they scrubbed out that Michael directly addressed her again; he looked at her and said, "I'm quite proud of you at the moment, you know, Serena."

She looked around at him. "Why?"

"You've spoken about it. That's the first time I've heard you openly talk about it," he smiled slightly and rubbed the space between her shoulder blades lightly. She smiled back despite her worry and indecision, knowing that he was doing what he could for her.

She answered him softly, "Thank you, Michael. For saving me."

"No problem," he smiled, squeezing her shoulders lightly as he passed.

She finished washing up and headed back to AAU, stopping and sitting down for a coffee instead of facing the hectic ward immediately. It was a nightmare to find the right choice here. There was so much that could go wrong – though most of it would be down to her weakness – and she didn't want to subject herself or anyone else to that. It wasn't fair on them, especially the younger ones who were simply out for a good time with no hassle or complications. She would only be a worry; she had been known to start fights and push herself to points of danger, and she knew there were some who remained a little wary of her. She couldn't really blame them, either.

She didn't want to be like her dad, staying out in the pubs until all hours of the night and throwing temper tantrums when someone came to take her home. She didn't want to be like him and be isolated from her rationality either. She didn't want to be stuck in a place where she was uncomfortable and making others just as so.

She wished she was capable of moderation but she had accepted that, actually, it was something she wasn't going to achieve. So it had to be drinking too much or not drinking at all. And like Michael had said, the fact it was there didn't mean she had to drink it.

But she didn't trust herself. That was what it really boiled down to. She had to learn to trust herself again, but she was clueless as to how to go about that.

She sighed and finished her coffee, heading back to AAU still undecided.

* * *

**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


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